
GopghtN^ 



COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TWENTY- ONE YEARS 
IN INDIA 



By 

REV. J. L. HUMPHREY, M. D. 




CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



iiOPV tJ. 



COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
JBNNINGS AND GRAHAM 



PREFACE. 



A i^Ew words in the way of preface may not 
be out of place. I am aware that much has been 
written about India late years, and that there may 
not seem to be a demand for another book on that 
subject. I have only to say, that much remains 
unknown still to our people here at home about 
that country and people, and about the great work 
going on there. It fell to my lot in the provi- 
dence of God to be associated with the work of 
our Church there in its very beginning, and what 
I have written may be of some value farther on 
when the history of our Mission in India is writ- 
ten up. I have seen the work expand from its 
very first inception to the great proportions it has 
now attained. God has indeed done great things 
for us ; but there are undoubtedly greater things 
in store for us in the future. I wish to record 
with others the goodness of the Lord seen in com- 

3 



4 Preface. 

moil with them. Perhaps something here men- 
tioned may not have been mentioned by others, 
and so may contribute to the general fund of 
knowledge which has accumulated as the years 
have been going by. I feel it, indeed, to be a 
very great honor to have had a part with our 
noble band of workers for Christ in India. If 
what I have wTitten shall in some little degree 
even contribute to the advancement of India's 
evangelization, I shall feel myself amply repaid. 

J. L,. Humphrey. 
L1TT1.E Fai,i,s, n. y. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTBR PAGE 

I. Introductory, Topography, Scenery, the Way 

People Live, Etc., ii 

II. Appointed a Missionary to India, Voyage and 
Arrival in Calcutta, and Journey to Naini 

TAL, 22 

III. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the Way It Began, 

and What Led to It, Etc., - - - - 41 

IV. Beginning to Open Our Work in Naini Tal 

and Make Our Plans for Work in the 

Plains, 61 

V. Opening Work in Moradabad and Bareilly, - 80 
VI. Beginning Preaching in the City of Bareilly, 

AND Baptism of Our First Convert, - 98 
VII. First Arrivals From Home, and Opening 

Work in Budaon, 117 

VIII. Return to Bareilly and Removal to Shah- 

jehanpore, 141 

IX. Removal to Moradabad AND Furlough Home, - 159 

X. Medical Work, Etc., 175 

XL Our Work in the Mountains, - - - - 189 

XII. Naini Tal, Pithoragarh, and the Tarai, - 205 

XIII. The Hindu People, 223 

5 



6 Contents. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. The Mohammedans of India, - - - 233 

XV. Again Pastor at Naini Tal English Church, - 245 

X\'I. A Call to This Work, 258 

XVII. History and Progress of Missionary Work in 
India, With Statement of Results, Both 
OF Our Own Church Work and of the 
Work as a Whole as Seen by the Last 
Census in 1901, 268 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



1. View of Naini Tal, Our Oldest Mission Station, Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

2. Joel Janvier, a Native Minister Given to Dr. Butler by 
the Presbyterian Mission in Allahabad, Blind and in 

His Old Age, -31 

3. Memorial Well, Cawnpore, Into Which the Dead and 
Dying Women and Children Were Cast Who Were 
Massacred by the Order of Nanni Sahib in the Mutiny 

of 1857, 56 

4. Zhur Ul Haqq, Our First Baptized Convert and First 
Native Presiding Elder, - - - - - - 112 

5. Sir William Muir and Sir Henry Ramsay - - - 183 

6. Medical Class. About the First Women Educated in 
Medicine, 187 

7. Isa Das and Family. A Brahmin Baptized in 1870 in 
Haldwani, 193 

8. English Methodist Episcopal Church, ... - 207 

9. Wellesley Girls' High School, 209 

10. Oak Openings Boys' High School, . . - . 210 

11. A Class of Christian Girls, and Rebecca, Their Teacher, 
Another Member of the Medical Class, and Who v^^as 
Miss Dr. Swain's Assistant in the Woman's Hospital 

in Bareilly for Many Years, 232 

12. Bareilly Theological Seminary Faculty, - - - - 281 



Twenty-one Years in India. 



CHAPTER I. 
Introductory Chapter. 

India is a very interesting country; but few 
who have not visited it, or lived in it, can realize 
how interesting it really is. 

In past ages it has been thought of as a verita- 
ble El Dorado or a kind of fairy land, possessing 
fabulous wealth. Solomon's ships visited India, 
and brought back gold, precious stones, and pea- 
cocks' feathers. Christopher Columbus aspired to 
find a Western pasage to India; but instead he 
discovered this continent, and opened up a new 
world. He thought it was India, as he called the 
people he found here Indians. 

The country is about i,8oo miles at its ex- 
treme points from north to south, and about 1,500 
miles from east to west, not including Burmah. 
It contains a superficial area of 1,860,000 square 

II 



12 Twknty-one: Years in India. 

miles. In 1901, when the last census was taken, 
the population was 294,382,676, nearly one-fifth 
of the population of the entire world. The great 
mass of the people are very poor. The wage 
of a common laborer is not more than two dol- 
lars a month, he finding himself. The popula- 
tion, under the paternal care of the British Gov- 
ernment is increasing, and one of the great prob- 
lems confronting the Government is how to im- 
prove the condition of the great wage-earning 
class of the population. 

The Secretary of State for India, Lord 
George Hamilton, recently said in Parliament, 
"That so far as eighty-three per cent of the popu- 
lation was concerned, there was a clear and in- 
disputable evidence that their condition during 
the last twenty years had improved." He also 
stated, "That the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, has re- 
cently taken the greatest pains to ascertain what 
the average income per head of the agricultural 
population now is, contrasted with twenty years 
ago; and he finds that in 1880 it was rupees 18 
per head; in 1900, notwithstanding the increase 



TwKNTY-ONi: YKARS in InDIA. 1 3 

in the population, it was rupees 20 per head, not 
a great increase, but still an advance. During 
that period the income per head of the non-agri- 
cultural population is estimated to have risen from 
rupees 27 to rupees 30. The total of land under 
cultivation in 1880 was 194,000,000 of acres; it 
is now 217,000,000 of acres. In the yield per 
acre we see a marked increase; in 1880 the yield 
of food crops per acre was 730 pounds, in 1900 
it was 840 pounds." 

Sir William Hunter, in his work "Our Indian 
Empire," says that not much more than four per 
cent of the people live in the cities and larger 
towns, showing that the population of India is 
largely rural, and as a whole very poor ; but there 
is actual improvement in their condition, as these 
figures show. 

The country is crossed from east to west be- 
tween the twenty-third and twenty-fifth parallels 
of latitude, by the Vindiya range of mountains, 
at the base of which flows the Nerbudda River. 
The country to the north is usually called Hin- 
dustan, and that to the south is the Deccan. Stan 



14 Twenty-one Years in India. 

means place, Hindustan, therefore, means place 
or country of the Hindus. 

Two great rivers take their rise in the Hima- 
layan range of mountains, and have much to do 
in fixing the general outlines and topography of 
the country to the north, or Hindustan proper. 
One of these, the Ganges, flows from the moun- 
tain range on the north to the southeast and 
empties into the Bay of Bengal; the other, the 
Indus, flows to the southwest and empties into 
the Arabian Sea, or Persian Gulf, at Karachee. 
These magnificent rivers drain and irrigate nearly 
one-half of the entire country. 

The great Gangetic Plain stretches away from 
Calcutta to the northwest to Peshawar on the 
Indus, 1, 800 miles, while the Indus extends away 
to the southwest to the Arabian Sea. 

These plains are, on an average, three hundred 
miles in width, and they constitute the garden of 
India. On the north we have the grand Hima- 
layan chain of mountains, with the snowy range 
towering up in the heavens and sparkling in the 
sunlight with indescribable beauty. In the cold 



Twe:nTy-one: Ykars in India. ic, 



J 



season as you journey to the Northwest on the 
Grand Trunk Road, a metaled road all the way 
from Calcutta to Peshawur, i,8oo miles, without 
doubt the finest road in the world, or by railway, 
this snowy range may be seen for hundreds of 
miles of the journey. This vast plain continues 
practically up to the base of the mountains, hav- 
ing only a slight ascent for a few miles before 
reaching the mountains proper, and so gradual 
is the ascent that it is hardly noticeable to the 
ordinary observer. There is not much hilly or 
rolling country through which you pass as you 
approach the range itself. At the foot of the 
mountains is a strip of country slightly declining 
towards the plains, called the Bhaber, or waterless 
forest, as the word means ; that is, water can not 
be reached by digging wells. The Bhaber is from 
ten to fifteen miles in width; then we strike the 
Tarai, where the water is very near the surface, 
and is covered with tall grass and more or less 
with forests. 

This section Is very malarious during the 
rainy season and for some months afterward. 



i6 Twenty-one Years in India. 

Many wild animals inhabit this region, such as 
bears, leopards, tigers, and even wild elephants 
are found here. The great thoroughfares from 
the seaports to the northwest, pass through these 
plains. It may be imagined that they are monoto- 
nous to the traveler; but such is not the case, 
however. 

The landscape is usually attractive, and often 
especially so during the cold season when travel- 
ers visit India. The palm tree with its feathery 
top and unique leaves and branches, dots the ex- 
panse and constantly reminds you that you are in 
a tropical land — a land strangely unlike your 
own. The great Gangetic Valley is for the most 
part highly cultivated and densely populated. 

In Upper India you will see vast fields of 
wheat, rice, millet, dal, gram, potatoes, sugar- 
cane, and tobacco, and many other purely Indian 
cereals. In some parts you find indigo, poppies, 
and cotton being cultivated to a large extent. Po- 
tatoes, late years, are being cultivated extensively 
both in the mountains and plains. At the foot of 
the mountains, in the locality I have spoken of as 



Twenty-one Years in India. 17 

the Bhaber, large fields of mustard may be seen in 
the proper season, and the air will be scented 
with the perfume of its bright yellow flowers, lor 
a long distance. Mustard-seed yields a kind* of 
oil extensively used and very highly valued by 
the natives. Wheat is much grown, especially in 
the Northwest. The landscape is much broken 
by numerous groves of mango, tamarind, pepul, 
and orange trees. These groves are usually con- 
tiguous to the villages and cities, and, being set 
out with regularity, they add much to the beauty 
of the country, and serve to break up what would 
otherwise be very tame and monotonous. 

There are no homes scattered about over the 
country as with us. The people live in cities or 
villages. In the villages the houses are squalid 
and uninviting. The walls are of mud and cov- 
ered with grass, without windows, or floors, 
other than the earth itself. There is not much 
order in the location of houses in a village. A 
village is simply a collection of miserable mud 
huts, thrown in about as it happens; the streets 
have to take their chances, winding about, and 
2 



i8 TwKnTy-one: Years in India. 

finding a passage through if possible. As a rule 
they are filthy and sadly lacking in all sanitary 
arrangements. They are likely to abound with 
ill-kept dogs, goats, cattle, and naked children. 
You will not often see swine about, as they are 
only kept by the very lowest class of the people, 
and not by the Hindus or Mohammedans at all. 
In the cities the buildings are superior to those 
in villages. Generally, they are built of brick and 
covered with tiles or cement. The houses are 
not arranged at all according to our ideas of con- 
venience and comfort. The rooms are generally 
small, low between joints, without windows, ill 
ventilated, and quite without all furnishings, ex- 
cept in the case of the very well-to-do. 

A small piece of matting serves in place of a 
chair and for a bed. They do not have chairs or 
tables in their houses. They sleep, sit, and take 
their meals on the floor or ground. 

They have no knives, forks, or spoons; but 
make their fingers do service in place of these. 
A house is not to them what it Is to us in our 
cold climate. The most of the year it is very 



Twenty-one Years in India. 19 

warm, and at no time is the cold excessive, and 
for the largest part of the year it is uniformly 
pleasant, no storms, night or day, for weeks and 
months even, so they live much in the open air. 
They wear light clothing; the poorer people 
clothe themselves very scantily. 

I have now described Upper India, or Hindu- 
stan proper. I have mentioned its two great 
plains, that of the Ganges and Indus. Much of 
India is a vast plain. We have, in addition to 
these plains, the great sandy desert on the west, 
and an elevated tract called Central India. The 
Deccan, or South India, has a chain of mountains 
on its northern boundary running nearly parallel 
with the Vindiya range, to the south of which 
stretches a table-land of triangular form, termi- 
nating at Cape Comorin with the Western 
Ghauts on the opposite coast. Between the 
Ghauts and the sea lies a narrow belt of land 
which runs around the whole peninsula. 

The soil is generally productive, only requir- 
ing water to produce good crops. Indeed every- 
thing grows with great luxuriance in India when 



20 Twenty-one Years in India. 

the rainfall is normal. When the fall is less than 
normal the price of grain rises in the market, and 
the people begin to feel the pressure of want. If 
the rainfall is materially lessened, and this con- 
tinues for two or three seasons in succession, it 
produces famine with all its attendant horrors. 

From time immemorial the country has been 
subject to these calamities. To obviate them, or 
to lessen their influence, an extensive system of 
irrigation has been carried out by the Govern- 
ment, at an immense outlay, and by this means 
a considerable part of the country is protected 
from this calamity. In 1900 there were 180,- 
150,454 acres of land cultivated; 31,544,000 were 
rendered safe from drought by irrigation. We 
now have over 27,000 miles of railway spread 
over the country. These, too, are a great protec- 
tion from the evils of famine, as by means of 
them the surplus production of one part of the 
country can be rapidly removed to another part 
in a time of emergency. 

There is a large amount of wheat grown in 
some parts of the country ; about thirteen bushels 



TwEnTy-one Years in India. 21 

to the acre would be regarded a fair yield. The 
exports of India in 1900 were 77,950,000 pounds 
sterling, $399,750,000. Imports were 61,113,000 
sterling, or $355,565,000. The Government of 
India is a very paternal government, and in every 
way in its power seeks to improve the condition 
of the people. 

There are three seasons in India, the hot and 
rainy season, which begins about the middle of 
June and continues until the middle or end of 
September. Then begins the cold season, which 
up country is almost uniformly pleasant and de- 
lightful. The hot season begins in March or 
early in April and continues until the rains set in, 
in June or July. It is extremely hot during this 
season. The heat is somewhat modified by the 
rainfall, but the humidity of the atmosphere 
makes the heat even more trying to many, than 
the hot season proper. 



CHAPTER II. 

Appointed a Missionary to India, Voyage, and 
Arrival in Calcutta. 

In 1854, Dr. Durbin, Secretary of our Mis- 
sionary Society, published a call for two young 
men to go out to India. It was felt that the time 
had arrived when w^e as a Church should enter 
upon this work in that country. It was then 
thought that they would be desired to go out the 
following year. I had been deeply interested in 
this subject, for some time felt that God had 
called me to this work. After much deliberation 
I responded to this call and signified my willing- 
ness to go if needed. I heard nothing from this 
until September, 1856, when Bishop Simpson 
notified me that I was accepted for India, and 
would be expected to sail in May or June fol- 
lowing. I was stationed at Malone, in Northern 
New York, at the time, and this arrangement 
would enable me to finish out my year before 

22 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India. 23 

leaving. A few months before the Rev. WilHam 
Butler, of the New England Conference, had been 
appointed superintendent, and had gone out by 
the way of England to visit friends, and to con- 
sult with missionary secretaries and friends there 
as to the portion of India it would be best for 
us to occupy. He arrived in Calcutta about the 
time I received my appointment, and after most 
careful consideration and consultation with mis- 
sionary friends and secretaries, he resolved to lo- 
cate in Bareilly, the capital of the Province of 
Rohilcund, in the Northwest. It was in his plan 
to occupy Oudh, to the east of Rohilcund, and 
probably would have settled in Lucknow, the cap- 
ital of Oudh, if he could have procured a resi- 
dence there; but failing in this he located in 
Bareilly in January, 1857. Rev. Ralph Pierce, of 
Moira, N. Y., had received his appointment to 
India some months before I received mine. His 
wife was an adopted daughter of Dr. and Mrs, 
J. T. Peck, afterward Bishop Peck. I left Ma- 
lone on the 24th day of May, and after a few 
days in New York, we all, accompanied by Dr. 



24 Twenty-one Years in India. 

and Mrs. Peck, Dr. Durbin, and Rev. D. Terry, 
went to Boston, where farewell services were 
held on Sunday. On that very day the mutiny 
occurred in Bareilly. On Monday we sailed, our 
party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Pierce and their 
little babe; Mrs. Owens, wife of Dr. Owens, of 
the Presbyterian Mission of Allahabad; Mrs. 
Humphrey, and myself. Our voyage, though 
long and tedious, was on the whole a pleasant 
one, and we improved our time in the study of 
the language, and, with Mrs. Owen to direct us, 
we succeeded in laying a good foundation, which 
was a very great help to us after our arrival in 
Calcutta. We learned the alphabet, read and 
translated several of the first chapters of Mat- 
thew's Gospel. A very pleasant incident occurred 
when we were about twenty degrees south of the 
Equator. We sighted a ship from Liverpool, 
bound to Australia ; the day was fine, and the sea 
fairly smooth, and we came near enough to com- 
municate by signals. The captain of the English 
ship invited our captain to take his passengers and 
come on board their ship and dine with them. 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 25 

Upon our concurrence, he accepted the invitation, 
and we had a most enjoyable time. They had a 
large number of passengers, and it did not take 
us long to become acquainted. We learned that 
they were from Liverpool, and left about the same 
time we left Boston, so we did not have much 
news to communicate to them, nor they much to 
give us; but we had many things to talk about, 
so the two hours we passed on board their ship 
flew by very quickly, and the memory of them re- 
mained with us for many a day. Some of the 
passengers we met that day on the Southern 
Cross, the name of their ship, wrote to us in 
India, and for some years we maintained a very 
pleasant correspondence. Our course lay about 
four hundred miles south of the Cape of Good 
Hope, and, it being winter on that side of the 
Equator, it was very rough and cold. Westerly 
winds prevailed in that latitude at that season of 
the year, and we were rapidly swept eastward on 
our course until we sighted the little island of 
St. Paul's, which was our signal to turn to the 
north up towards the Bay of Bengal. 



26 Twenty-one Years in India. 

On the i/th of September we sighted the 
hghtship, as we supposed, near the mouth of the 
Hooghly River, where we expected to get a pilot 
to take us up the river a Httle more than a hun- 
dred miles to Calcutta. We arrived in the night 
and cast anchor to wait for the morning. We 
could not get our pilot until morning, this we 
knew. Then we learned that bad news awaited 
us, but we could not find out what it was. We 
also found that we had gone to the wrong light- 
ship. The one we wished to get was about forty 
miles away. It took us nearly all the next day 
to find out this much, and as the hours passed by 
we found that our anchor did not hold the ship, 
and we were surely drifting on to the sand-banks, 
and that we were already in a very dangerous 
proximity to them. We knew that many ships 
have been wrecked in this locality by being driven 
on the banks by the force of the current, and 
then capsizing. At one time it seemed that surely 
this would be our fate, but in the last moment, 
as it seemed to us, a breeze sprang up that filled 
our sails and took us out of our perilous position. 



Twenty-one Years in India. 27 

In a few hours we were at the proper place, and 
we again cast anchor and waited for the morn- 
ing. With the dawn a pilot came aboard to take 
us up to Calcutta. The first thing he said, as he 
stepped onto our deck, was, "Well, I suppose you 
have heard the news?" "How should you sup- 
pose so ?" our captain replied ; "we have not seen 
a ship for more than two months." The pilot 
replied, "The country is in a turmoil, lots of mas- 
sacres, everybody killed up country ; but here are 
the papers that will tell you all about it." With 
what eagerness we seized those papers! From 
them we learned of the mutiny in Bareilly, and 
that Mr. Butler had probably escaped to Naini 
Tal, a hill sanitarium in the mountains, about 
seventy miles to the north of Bareilly. 

Mrs. Owen read of the outbreak in Allahabad, 
and of the destruction of the Mission premises, 
including her own home, but she could get no in- 
formation in regard to her husband. Her state 
of mind can be imagined. Our progress up the 
river was slow, as our captain determined not to 
pay the price demanded for a steam tug to take us 



28 Twenty-one Years in India. 

up, but to depend upon the wind and tide when 
they were favorable, anchoring when they were 
adverse. On the evening of the 21st of Septem- 
ber we cast anchor off Garden Reach, just oppo- 
site the ex-king of Oudh's palace, about four 
miles below our proper moorings off the Strand 
at Calcutta. Here we had our first experience of 
the India climate, and of Calcutta mosquitos. 
It was intensely hot, and the mosquitoes, like 
the sepoys, thirsted for blood. It was a dreadful 
night, but, as all such nights do, it ended at last. 
We had letters of introduction to Messrs. Stewart 
& Young, merchants from Glasgow, who had 
shown Mr. Butler much kindness, and with whom 
he was in communication as far as was possible 
in those days. In course of the day they came 
on board and took us to their home for dinner, 
and then to a home they had secured and fur- 
nished for us. They knew it would be some 
months before we could proceed up country, and 
it was out of the question to find a boarding- 
house for us, so they rented a comfortable house 
and furnished it with necessary furniture, and 



TwKnty-one: Years in India. 29 

put one of their own tried and trusted servants 
in charge of it. In the evening they joined us in 
our home at tea. Their kindness to us during 
our stay in Calcutta, and for years afterward, 
we can never forget. They were noble men, and 
very dear friends as long as they lived, but they 
have both been dead for many years. 

Our detention in Calcutta was a trial to us, 
but we could only make the best of it and wait 
patiently for the Lord to show us our way. It 
was a time of great excitement in Calcutta when 
we landed. A plot had just been discovered to 
murder all the foreign residents. A native prince 
then visiting Calcutta, had arranged to give a 
great entertainment in Botanical Gardens, which 
are about four miles on the opposite side of the 
river, but a heavy rain came on and prevented 
the people from going. Before the day ended it 
was learned that the sepoys had arranged to take 
advantage of the absence of the officers and resi- 
dents, and mutiny and seize the fort and the mint, 
but the rain broke up all their plans. The native 
regiments implicated were immediately disarmed. 



30 TwKNTY-ONE Years in India. 

They were only permitted to carry their ramrods 
after that day. The king of Oudh had a few days 
before been locked up in the fort for fear of a 
movement among the natives for his restoration. 
There were many bad elements at work, and no 
one knew what might happen any hour. 

We received much attention and kindness 
from missionaries and Christian friends. Mr. 
Butler had created a very favorable impression in 
Calcutta, and much interest was manifested in 
our proposed mission, and we were told that our 
progress would be watched with interest, and 
that it was hoped that the remarkable progress 
of our Church in the United States might even 
be surpassed in India. We were informed that 
great things w^ere expected of our Church in In- 
dia. We immediately began the study of the lan- 
guage under a competent native teacher, and 
made as good use of our opportunities as we 
could to become acquainted with mission work 
as it was being conducted in Calcutta at that 
time. It was a time of anxiety; indeed, it was 
about the darkest period of the mutiny when we 




JOEL JANVIER, BLIND AND AGED. 
(Native Minister, from the Presbyterian Mission in AUahabau 



Twe:nty-one Years in India. 31 

arrived. The first English soldiers landed about 
the same time we did ; those who had been inter- 
cepted by Lord Canning at the Cape of Good 
Hope, who were on their way to China, just at 
that time; but things had begun to brighten a 
little. Already an avenging army was on the way 
to the Northwest, and arrangements were rapidly 
being made for another to follow, and the cheer- 
ing news had just arrived that Delhi had fallen, 
and all were hoping that the worst was past, and 
so it proved. At the suggestion of our friend, 
Mr. Owen, we engaged Caleb, a young man of 
their Mission in Allahabad, as our teacher, whom 
we found well qualified for the position. He was 
a native Christian, and a special friend of Joel, 
who had been given to Mr. Butler as his assist- 
ant, by our Presbyterian brethren in Allahabad. 
Joel was with Mr. Butler in Bareilly, and was 
there when the mutiny broke out on the 31st of 
May, 1857. He escaped by climbing a tree near 
by, when the sepoys came and burned Mr. But- 
ler's house, and Maria was killed by them. It 
can well be imagined that we were interested in 



32 Twenty-one Years in India. 

every thing pertaining to Joel, and it was very 
pleasing to us to have Caleb, his friend, for our 
teacher. Under his instruction we made rapid 
progress, greatly to our advantage when, a few 
months later, we came to make the journey up 
country. The acquisition of the language is of 
the greatest importance to a missionary, and he 
can never do it so well as when he first arrives 
in the country. If he puts it off, instead of grow- 
ing less formidable it will become more so, and 
the probabilities are that he will never master it. 
I have often been asked if it is a difficult lan- 
guage to learn. I should say, not especially so; 
but it has some peculiarities that are only mas- 
tered by long study and practice. But most suc- 
ceed, at least fairly well, who are determined to 
do it. We found that our detention in Calcutta 
need by no means be lost time ; it gave us the op- 
portunity to become somewhat acquainted with 
the situation, greatly to our advantage in after 
years. We knew very little of India when we 
landed in Calcutta, and we devoted our best ef- 
forts to acquiring a knowledge of the people, the 



Twenty-one Years in India. 33 

country, and the work we were entering upon. 
How strange everything seemed when we first 
landed ! The people seemed especially so ; some 
were dressed, but more were only very slightly 
so, to say the least. Strange sights were on every 
hand, and a jargon of sounds fell upon our ears. 
It seemed a new world to us, so very unlike any- 
thing we had ever seen before or imagined. Cal- 
cutta at that time presented strange contrasts of 
wealth and poverty, refinement and ignorance, of 
grandeur and squalor. These contrasts are still 
seen there, as they are in all large cities, especially 
in the East. It is, however, much improved from 
what it was at that time. It is now a fine city; 
it has many splendid public buildings and pala- 
tial private residences. The scene that presents 
itself on the Strand of an evening is one of great 
magnificence. On one side are the ships of all 
nations at anchor; on the other, the Maidan, or 
parade ground, with a line of fine business and 
private residences in the background, and the city 
lying farther back. Such a display of fine equi- 
pages as may be seen passing up and down at 
3 



34 Twenty-one Years in India. 

about sundown,, or a little after, can hardly be 
seen anywhere in the world. The turnouts of 
\\ealthy natives, and the native princes with their 
high-bred Arab horses and livery-men in most 
gorgeous colors, present a most brilliant and 
showy scene indeed. 

We derived great pleasure and profit from 
our intercourse with missionaries of different 
Churches. Among them I may mention such men 
as Dr. Duff, Mr. Lacroix, and Mullins, of the 
London Missionary Society, and many others. 
We visited the schools and colleges being con- 
ducted by missionaries in Calcutta, and also vis- 
ited Christian villages and out-stations in the 
country round about; learned many things as to 
methods of mission work, that served us well in 
following years. We also took some lessons in 
street preaching at this time. The missionaries 
were somewhat divided on the subject. Dr. Duff 
was a strenuous advocate of education as a 
means of evangelization; but from the first it 
seemed clear to me that both were to be utilized 
to the fullest extent. And this was the view 
adopted by our Mission from the first. So far as 



TwKNTY-ONE Years in India. 35 

I know, we have never had the shghtest discus- 
sion as to preference of one of these over the 
other. We beHeve in both with all our hearts. I 
think at the present day nearly all missionaries 
do the same. 

The Calcutta Missionary Conference was a 
great power in those days. This body did much 
in helping to shape the action of Government on 
many important subjects affecting the interest of 
the people. Lord Canning was governor-general, 
and was much criticised for lack of spirit in deal- 
ing with the situation in the early part of the out- 
break. But general opinion has much changed in 
regard to his administration, which is now con- 
sidered to have been judicious and dignified on 
the whole. 

I shall never forget some of the addresses I 
heard Dr. Duff deliver in those days, especially 
one in the Free Church of Scotland, on the mu- 
tiny. I think it was the most eloquent address I 
have ever heard. I have never heard anything, 
from even Bishop Simpson in his best days, equal- 
ing it. 



36 Twenty-one Years in India. 

Early in February we began to consider the 
feasibility of undertaking the journey to Naini 
Tal. We were very anxious to make it before 
the extreme hot weather should set in, and Mr. 
Butler was very anxious to have us do so, that 
we together might lay our plans for opening our 
work in the plains. We soon had a communica- 
tion from him proposing to meet us in Agra. It 
was thought that we might venture to undertake 
the journey with a fair degree of safety. But all 
means of travel wxre monopolized by the Gov- 
ernment, it being a time of war; but we finally 
succeeded in arranging for coolies to propel us, 
we furnishing our own carriages. 

Accordingly, on the 24th day of February, 
1858, we started for Raneegunge, the terminus of 
the railway, 112 miles from Calcutta. Here we 
found our carriages, and began our long journey 
to the northwest. We journeyed day and night 
with changes of coolies every ten miles. There 
is this to be said, the road was splendid. There 
is no better road in the world than the Grand 
Trunk road, stretching away from Calcutta to 



Twenty-one Years in India. 37 

Peshawur, the magnificent distance of 1,800 
miles. 

We were nearly a fortnight in reaching Alla- 
habad, a distance of 500 miles, and which may 
now be made easily, and with comfort in twenty 
hours. Here we were obliged to interrupt our 
journey, as a gentleman had given me the use 
of a carriage to this place for the sake of getting 
it up country, and he was to furnish me a horse 
dak from there on to i\gra. So we were sepa- 
rated from our party here. The others went on, 
hoping to get coolies as they had so far on their 
journey; but they failed in their expectation. 
They succeeded, however, in pressing the horses 
into their service belonging to the Dak Company, 
that they found along the road every five miles, 
and so succeeded in reaching Agra safely. 

We followed in two or three days, and reached 
Agra safely, where, to our great delight, we met 
Mr. Butler. While we remained in Agra we put 
up in a room in the Jawab, one of the buildings 
of the Taj-Mahal. I will not attempt a descrip- 
tion of this wonderful building, it has been so 



38 Twenty-one Years in India. 

often described by others. I will only say it 
was built by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan as 
a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Ma- 
hal. It is one of the most beautiful structures in 
tlie world. It is a poem in marble. Twenty thou- 
sand workmen were seventeen years in construct- 
ing it, and the edifices connected with it, at a 
cost of about nine million dollars. Much of the 
labor was forced, the workmen receiving only a 
scant allowance of rice for their daily consump- 
tion. 

From here we went to Meerut and spent a 
few days in rest, and then started out to make the 
journey by way of Landour and the mountains 
to Naini Tal, which would take about twenty- 
two days. If we could have gone by the direct 
route we could have made the journey in two or 
three days; but the country was in the hands of 
the mutineers, and we could not tell when it 
would be opened and practicable to go by it; so 
we determined to take the long route by the moun- 
tains. It was, in many respects, a very wearisome 
journey; though on the whole we enjoyed it. The 



Twenty-one Years in India. 39 

climate was delightful, and the scenery in many 
places grand. Our party consisted of Mr. and 
Mrs. Butler and their little Julia, ]\Ir. and Mrs. 
Pierce and their little Marilla, who had made the 
voyage with us from x\merica; and Mrs. Hum- 
phrey and myself, with Joel and Samuel and Bella. 
Our party, all told, consisted of nearly seventy- 
five people, so we made quite an imposing array. 
Our last day's journey was very long and 
fatiguing. We started as usual very early in the 
morning, and it was near midnight when, after a 
long climb up the mountain side that shuts in 
Naini Tal on the west and north, we emerged 
from the shadows and came into the moonlight at 
the pass, and we looked down the mountain into 
the valley below and caught our first glimpse of 
the beautiful "Little Lake," as Naini Tal means. 
How beautiful it was, shimmering in the moon- 
light ! I can hardly imagine heaven to be more 
beautiful to a weary traveler from earth than 
that lake and valley were to us, so 'weary, that 
night. Mr. Parsons met us and welcomed us 
to our home. We were escorted to a lovely little 



40 Twenty-one; Y^ars in India. 

cottage. A fire was burning on the hearth, the 
table was spread, and we were told this was to 
be our home. We said, surely this is heaven ! 

Our long journey of almost two months was 
ended ; we could now rest without fear of falling 
into the hands of bloodthirsty enemies. How 
much we had to thank our Heavenly Father for 
that night! This was to be one of our mission 
stations ; so it was home for a time, and we could 
rest in peace and safety. Later it was my 
home for about fourteen years. I shall have 
more to say in regard to our work in this lovely 
place farther on. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. 

It may not be inappropriate now briefly to 
consider some of the causes which led to the 
mutiny of 1857. The year opened as others, with 
nothing to indicate that anything unusual was 
about to take place; but soon unpleasant rumors 
began to be heard of dissatisfaction and uneasi- 
ness in the native army. There was, however, 
nothing in this particularly alarming, as such 
demonstrations were not uncommon. It is a re- 
markable fact that British power in India had 
been established by a native army, officered by 
Englishmen. The native soldiers are calls Sepoys, 
which means soldiers. From the time of Clive, 
they have always had a few British soldiers in 
their army in India ; but the chief dependence has 
been upon the native force. The natives were 
brave, and when trained and armed, after the 

41 



42 Twe:nty-one Years in India. 

English system, and led by English officers, made 
excellent soldiers. They were much superior to 
the native armies of the country. This was, no 
doubt, due to the influence of their officers upon 
them, to their training, and superior weapons. 
Their failure to overthrow the English was prob- 
ably owing to the fact that they were not accus- 
tomed to independent action. They depended 
upon their officers, and without them they were 
unable to face the enemy. Their courage and 
skill seemed to forsake them when left to their 
own resources. When the mutiny broke out there 
were but comparatively few European soldiers in 
the countr}^ There were not more than four or 
five thousand in all of the Northwest, over against 
a native army of fifty or sixty thousand. 

The native army v/as a great power for good 
in the hands of the English, but in the hands of 
designing and mischievous men it might become a 
menace to the power that created it. In the early 
months of that year, there was in the minds of 
many a feeling of suspense: there seemed to be 
something in the air indicating a gathering storm. 



Twe:nTy-one Yi:ars in India. 43 

It was reported that Chapatties (a kind of native 
bread) were being mysteriously circulated over 
the country from place to place. No one knew the 
meaning of it, but all felt it boded no good, but 
rather evil in some form. The old musket about 
this time was superseded by the modern rifle, and 
trouble arose about the cartridges used with the 
new weapon. It was reported that they were 
lubricated with cow's fat and lard. The Hindus 
worship the cow, and to bite the cartridge thus 
prepared, they said, would break their caste. 
Everything pertaining to swine is an abomina- 
tion to a Moslem, so both classes of sepoys had a 
grievance, and were up in arms about the new 
cartridge. The Nineteenth Native Infantry, sta- 
tioned at Berhampore, about a hundred miles 
north of Calcutta, had forcibly opened the Bells 
(small structures where their arms were stored 
when not in use) and seized their guns and am- 
munition, and refused to use the new cartridge. 
Their conduct was so insubordinate and mutinous 
that it could not be overlooked; accordingly, on 
the 30th of March they were disarmed and dis- 



44 TwENTY-ON^ Years in India. 

missed from the service. On the 6th of Febru- 
ary an officer of the Thirty-fourth Native Infan- 
try, stationed at Barackpore, just a few miles to 
the north of Calcutta, was informed by a sepoy of 
his company, that the four regiments stationed at 
that place had determined to mutiny and murder 
their officers, burn their residences, plunder their 
property, and proceed to Fort William and seize 
it. Though the order of drill had been changed 
so that they might not be required to bite the cart- 
ridge, they were also assured that the cartridges 
were not different from those they had been ac- 
customed to use with their former weapons; but 
they were still dissatisfied and positively refused 
to use them. A sepoy of this regiment shot one 
of the officers, severely wounding him. This 
sepoy was hanged and the regiment was disarmed 
and disbanded. The Government now became 
alive to the danger that menaced it. A general 
feeling of alarm prevailed among Europeans ; all 
felt that they were standing on a mine that might 
at any moment explode and involve them in a 
common ruin. It is now known that it was 



Twenty-one Years in India. 45 

planned, that on a certain day — the 31st of May 
— all over the country the sepoys should rise, mas- 
sacre all Europeans, burn and plunder their 
dwellings and property, and so sweep from the 
land everything Christian. Providentially the 
movement was precipitated by the native troops 
in Meerut, a large military station in the north- 
west. There was a regiment of European sol- 
diers here at the time, with a large force of na- 
tive soldiers, both cavalry and infantry. It seems 
that a considerable number of men of one of the 
cavalry regiments refused to use the new cart- 
ridge, and were put under arrest, and were tried 
by court-martial, and were sentenced to prison for 
ten years at hard labor. They were stripped of 
their uniforms, and irons were riveted upon their 
ankles on the parade ground. As they were be- 
ing marched to the place of confinement, they 
called upon their comrades to rise and deliver 
them. The next day the native regiments muti- 
nied, burned their barracks, murdered as many of 
their officers and Europeans as they could, opened 
the prison, liberating the prisoners, burned the 



46 Twenty-one Years in India. 

residences of Europeans, and destroying all the 
public property possible, then marched off to 
Delhi, forty miles distant. Delhi is a historic 
city in India; it has been the famous capital of 
many dynasties which have ruled the country, and 
it has been rendered especially celebrated by the 
reigns of the Mogul kings. Though the country 
was ruled by the English, a remnant of this power 
still existed in form. Bhadur-Shah, the last of 
the Mogul kings, had been permitted to keep up 
the semblance of royalty in the fort at Delhi. He 
had greater influence with all classes and creeds 
than any other, and it was natural that the dis- 
affected and insubordinate should gather about 
him. He was disaffected towards the British 
Government, as it had decided that the title to 
royalty should cease with him. The royal family 
had been informed of this decision, and although 
they seemed to acquiesce, they were smarting un- 
der what they felt to be a great injustice and in- 
dignity, and were only biding their time when 
they might retaliate. The mutiny of the native 
army seemed to afford the opportunity desired. 



TwKNTY-ONE Yi:arS in InDIA. 47 

The troops that had risen against the En^- 
Hsh in Meerut, upon arri^^ing in Delhi, were 
joined by those stationed at that place, and they 
at once broke out into open rebellion and pro- 
ceeded to murder all Christians they could find, 
and plunder their property, and then proclaimed 
Bhadur-Shah king. The sepoys everywhere fol- 
lowed the example thus set them by the sepoys 
of Meerut, and at once rose in open mutiny, mur- 
dering and plundering all Christians, and marched 
off to Delhi and joined the standard of Bhadur- 
Shah. So this became the great center of the 
mutiny in upper India. They made this their 
stronghold, and here laid out their full strength. 

To the north lay the Panjab, the land of five 
rivers, as the word indicates. The word is de- 
rived from two words, panch, five, and ab, water, 
literally five waters, which is contracted into Pan- 
jab. This was the home of the vSikhs, a brave and 
warlike nation, which had only a short time be- 
fore been conquered by the British, and their 
country annexed to the British possessions. The 
danger was that they might join with the Hin- 



48 Twenty-one: Years in India. 

dustanees against their conquerors. Had they done 
so it would seem that nothing could have saved 
the British power from overthrow. It seems re- 
markable that they did not. Sir John Lawrence 
was commissioner of the Panjab at that time. 
Through his influence, under God, with the grand 
men associated with him — such as Edwards, Nich- 
olson, Montgomery, and many others, thoroughly 
versed in controlling and governing the rough 
and wild people of the northern frontier — the 
Sikhs and many other tribes always ready to join 
in an affray when opportunity offers, were not 
only kept loyal, but turned to good account in 
helping to put down the mutiny and recover 
Delhi. Sir John Lav/rence saw at once the su- 
preme necessity of recovering Delhi with as 
little delay as possible. He almost denuded 
the Panjab of British soldiers and hastened 
them off to Delhi. Early in June a force of 
three or four thousand men occupied the ridge 
on the western side of Delhi, and commenced a 
siege that lasted all through the intense heat of 
an Indian hot and rainy season, until the middle 



Twe:nty-one; Ye:ars in India. 49 

of September, when the city was taken. The 
suffering endured through all this period by the 
army can not be described. The force at no time 
consisted of more than 6,000 men, and the number 
was constantly lessened by casualties in battle, 
and by sickness from the dreadful exposure. In 
the fall of Delhi the backbone of the mutiny was 
broken; but much hard fighting remained to be 
done, especially at Lucknow. The royal family 
was broken up, the princes were slain, the old 
king, Bhadur-Shah, was banished to Burmah, 
where he died soon after. 

A short time before the mutiny broke out, the 
king of Oudh had been deposed and his country 
annexed to the British possessions. His Govern- 
ment was so corrupt and oppressive that it could 
be endured no longer. He had been warned re- 
peatedly by different governor-generals that he 
must reform his court and administration; but 
these warnings were unheeded, and affairs con- 
tinued to go from bad to worse. The time came, 
at length, when this could not be suffered longer, 
and the king was removed and the country taken 
4 



50 Twenty-one Years in India. 

over by the British in the interest of humanity, 
and who proceeded to revise the land tenure, so 
as to protect the cultivators against the rapacity 
of the Zemindars, or land-owners. The people 
however, gave the English no credit, but looked 
upon it as usurpation and unjust. The landed 
proprietors complained of oppression, because 
they were not permitted to oppress their tenants 
as they had before done, and the tenants them- 
selves distrusted the motives of the Government, 
so Oudh became a hot-bed of discontent and 
mutiny. Many of the sepoys in the army were 
from Oudh, and they all shared in this dissatis- 
faction. In this way they were prepared to make 
the most of any incident that turned up and that 
afforded an opportunity to show their ill-will 
toward the English. 

It now seems strange that so many could be- 
lieve as they did that the purpose to rise and throw 
off allegiance to the British was not at this time 
almost universal in the sepoy army. After half 
the army had mutinied, many English officers 
said their own regiments would not mutiny, and 



TwKNTY-ONK Ye:arS in InDIA. 5 1 

persisted in trusting in their men. Many more 
might have escaped, but for this bUnd confidence 
in the loyalty of the sepoys. Sir Henry Law- 
rence was commissioner of Oudh at the time 
the mutiny broke out in Lucknow. He seemed 
to have taken in the situation from the first, and 
formed an accurate conception of the extent of 
the danger threatened. Years before he had pre- 
dicted that some day the native army would 
mutiny and attempt the overthrow of the Gov- 
ernment. He now believed that what he foresaw 
was about to occur, and he set about preparing 
the residency so that all Europeans might seek 
shelter there when the storm should burst upon 
them. He laid in supplies sufficient for a siege 
of long duration. So when the exigency arose 
they were ready. The wisdom of all this was 
seen later. They had food, water, and fuel sufifi- 
cient to meet the wants of all confined there for 
more than five months. They had an abundant 
supply of ammunition also; had either food or 
ammunition failed they must have perished. The 
preservation of all that company of people was 



52 Twe:nTy-one: Ymrs in India. 

therefore due to the wise foresight of that great 
and good man, who was killed early in the siege 
by a cannon-ball which entered his room. For 
more than five months they defended themselves 
in their frail defenses against vast hordes of the 
enemy that surrounded them in the city, subject 
to every disadvantage and constant peril by night 
and day. Havelock and Outram fought their 
way into the residency, but the enemy closed the 
way behind them so that they could not get out 
after they had forced their way in. They re- 
mained shut up with the others until finally re- 
lieved in November by Sir Colin Campbell. Luck- 
now was not taken until March following, 1858. 
The story of the siege of the residency in 
Lucknow is a thrilling one. It is hard to imag- 
ine the suffering endured during those months 
of that dreadful hot season. Under the most 
favorable circumstances the intense heat is al- 
most unendurable to foreigners; it is a wonder 
how any lived through it, shut up in small or 
overcrowded quarters, with little chance for ven- 
tilation, and with their necessarily coarse fare 



Twe:nty-one Ye;ars in India. 53 

and lack of all comforts of life, to which they had 
been accustomed ; as it was, many succumbed. The 
residency is now in ruins, but it is carefully pre- 
served in its present form as a memorial of those 
dreadful days. No stranger would come to India 
without visiting the residency. It is indeed his- 
toric ground. Lucknow is a large city with many 
objects of interest and worthy of the attention of 
the stranger. It is vastly different from what it 
was before the mutiny. The people of Oudh are 
now prosperous and happy under British rule. It 
is a noble field for missionary work, and much is 
being done to improve and elevate the people. 
It is the very garden of India, its people are nat- 
urally a noble race, all they lack is Christianity; 
this many are now receiving, and the prospect is 
that in the near future great numbers will do 
the same. 

Another of the leading spirits, in events lead- 
ing to the mutiny, was Dhondo-Pant, or Nana- 
Sahib, as he is more commonly known. He was 
the adopted son and heir of the last of the Mah- 
ratta chiefs. A pension had been given to the 



54 Twenty-one: Ykars in India. 

Peshwa, with the distinct understanding that it 
should cease at his death, which occurred in 185 1. 
Nana-Sahib, though left a large fortune, was not 
satisfied. The lapse of the pension was a sore 
grievance to him, and what he regarded as a gross 
wrong rankled in his breast^ and when all efforts 
to get it renewed failed, his rage and hate of the 
British became most intense. He lived at Bithur 
on the Ganges, a few miles to the west of Cawn- 
pore. He was apparently very friendly with the 
English residents of the station, and often got up 
lavish entertainments for them at his palace. All 
the while he was plotting their destruction. That 
he had been plotting with the king of Delhi and 
the Nawab of Lucknow, or of Oudh, is now well 
known. He did his utmost to promote discon- 
tent in the native army. He directed the sepoys 
in their movements when they mutinied, and 
openly assumed command of the rebel forces. 
There was a part of a European regiment at 
Cawnpore at the time, and a large number of 
European and Christian families. The place se- 
lected where they were to congregate in case of 



TwKnty-one Years in India. 55 

disturbance, and make their defense, was not 
well chosen. It was for the most part open 
ground, with no natural defenses of any account. 
There were some barracks, but they were but 
poorly adapted either for shelter or defense, but 
they did the best they could to protect themselves. 
For three weeks in the terrible heat of June, they 
kept at bay all the forces of Nana-Sahib. Dur- 
ing this time, however, many were killed, and 
many died of exposure. If they could hold out a 
few days more relief would come to them. Have- 
lock, with an avenging army, was on the way to 
their relief, his guns might almost have been 
heard at the time, but this was unknown to them, 
though well known to their enemies. The Nana 
now sought to accomplish by craft what he was 
too cowardly to do by force. He sent in a flag 
of truce, proposing to supply them with boats and 
all needed supplies to take them to Allahabad, if 
they would surrender their arms and march out 
of their defenses. In an evil hour General 
Wheeler, their commanding officer, listened to his 
proposal, and trusting his integrity and sincerity, 



56 Twe:nty-one Years in India. 

accepted his terms, and marched out and took the 
road to the river a mile away. As they entered 
the boats and were pushed out into the stream, a 
masked battery opened upon them, and only four 
men escaped. The women and children who were 
not killed were marched back to the station and 
a little later were all huddled together in a small 
bungalow and were butchered in cold blood, and 
their bodies, the dead and dying together, were 
thrown into a well near by. A more cruel and 
diabolical deed has never been perpetrated, cer- 
tainly not in modern times. No name is so cov- 
ered with obloquy as that of this wretched man 
Nana-Sahib. He fled ultimately to Nepal, where 
in some lonely spot in the mountains, it is sup- 
posed, he ended his wretched life. Over the well 
is now a beautiful monument, and surrounding 
it is a beautiful and well-kept garden of several 
acres, called the "Memorial Garden." No one 
drives through it faster than a walk ; natives are 
not permitted to enter it. It is one of the great 
sights of India, not surpassed in interest by any 
other. No traveler would think of passing it by. 




MEMORIAL WELL IN CAWNPORE. 



Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 57 

The monument and the garden are beautiful as 
works of art, but it is the shocking event they 
commemorate that invests them with such uni- 
versal interest to all intelligent people the world 
over. I will conclude this chapter by briefly sum- 
marizing the causes that led up to the mutiny, 
as the matter is now understood. 

The trouble with the sepoys respecting the 
cartridges is one of the causes, no doubt, but it 
alone could never have produced the great up- 
heaval of that time. There were other causes 
that did not appear on the surface of events then 
transpiring. I think it is now clearly understood 
that the Mohammedans were the prime movers 
in that struggle. They ruled the country for sev- 
eral hundred years before the British took it from 
them. The purpose with them was to regain their 
supremacy. They were the leaders in the plot. 
They had a tradition among them that the Brit- 
ish supremacy would be for one hundred years; 
that supremacy began with the battle of Plassey, 
in 1757, so according to that tradition it would 
end in 1857, the year of the mutiny. Much was 



58 Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

made of that, at the time, and it had great weight 
with superstitious people. 

The Brahmins were drawn in to co-operate 
with them, because they saw that, in the order of 
things brought in by the foreigners, their craft 
was in danger. They hated our schools, which 
meant the elevation of the common people. They 
especially hated female education^ railways, and 
missionaries, and the English way of administer- 
ing justice. Their ideas of human equality and 
progress were especially offensive to the Brah- 
mins. With them it was a struggle against Chris- 
tianity, as that means progress, and the overthrow 
of their system of caste and their forms of idol- 
atry. 

The Mohammedans and Hindus are antago- 
nistic, and under no ordinary circumstances could 
they fraternize and co-operate; but their hatred 
of the English and all forms of progress, and of 
Christianity, was so great, that the Hindus of 
some of the higher castes were led for the 
time to sink, in some measure, their antipathy 
toward the Mohammedans, and to join with them 



TwKnTy-one Ye:ars in India. 59 

in this effort to sweep out the hated foreigners, 
who stood for Christianity and progress. 

The mutiny will ever mark a crisis in the his- 
tory of the English, and of Christianity in India. 
It was overruled so as to bring in a period of ad- 
vanced progress in the country. India had been 
won by the East India Trading Company. It 
was a great achievement that can hardly be 
equaled in history; but the company had had its 
day, and the year following the mutiny the Gov- 
ernment passed over to the crown, much to the 
advantage of the country in many ways, as the 
history of the intervening years will show. 

Another effect which followed the mutiny was 
greater interest in the work of missions among 
Government officials, both in the civil and mili- 
tary departments, and among all classes of Eng- 
lish people in the country ; but for their liberality 
we could not have accomplished what we did in 
opening our Mission Station, as is mentioned in 
a future chapter. We received encouragement 
from English people, such as we could not have 
received before the mutiny occurred. It awak- 



6o Tw:^Ni'Y-ONi: Years in India. 

ened a deeper interest in the cause in England, 
and in this country than had before been felt. It 
brought in a new era in mission work and of gen- 
eral progress. 

It was followed by an impression among the 
more thoughtful of the native population, that 
the country was to become a Christian country, 
and this predisposed them to give the Gospel a 
hearing. I think that this has had much to do 
with the great progress that has signalized these 
later years. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Beginning to Open Our "Work. 

The day after our arrival was Sunday, and 
we intensely enjoyed its rest and quiet. In the 
afternoon a service was held in the parlor of Mr. 
Butler's residence, and a good number of promi- 
nent people were present, especially ladies. The 
gentlemen were mostly in the plains on duty with 
the army, or engaged in restoring things to order 
in places recovered from the sepoys, so we had 
but few of them with us at this service. Mr. 
Butler preached a delightful sermon, and it was 
indeed a treat to hear a sermon again. A little 
later our superintendent was honored with the 
title of Doctor of Divinity from one of our home 
colleges, an honor most worthily bestowed in this 
instance. He was a very superior preacher; it 
was said of him that he was the best preacher in 

India. The service begun that afternoon has 

6i 



62 Twi:NTY-oNi: Ydars in India. 

been continued ever since. F'or more than a score 
of years it was conducted as an evening service 
only; in the morning a Hindustani service was 
held. Then a morning service in English was 
begun, which has been continued up to the pres- 
ent time. Our English Church in Naini Tal has 
been a power for good in all these years. 

After writing our home letters and getting 
settled, which occupied a day or two, we began 
to look about to see what we could do in the way 
of beginning work among the natives. A school 
for boys first engaged our attention. Mr. Josiah 
Parsons had joined Dr. Butler some little time 
before our arrival, who was living in Naini Tal 
and waiting to begin work. He had made all 
the arrangements for our reception. He and his 
wife both had a good knowledge of the language, 
and were especially valuable to us at that time 
on its account. A place was rented in the Bazar, 
and a school for boys was soon opened under the 
charge of Mr. Parsons. 

A school for girls was also soon opened in 
Mr. Pierce's residence, under the charge of the 



Twenty-one Years in India. 63 

ladles of the Mission, with more than a score 
of girls in attendance. These schools have gone 
on all the intervening years to the present time, 
and they have done much in shaping the character 
of the residents of the native community. We 
also began a Hindustani service on Sunday morn- 
ing. Having no suitable place in which to hold 
such a service, an out-building connected with 
the servants' quarters of Dr. Butler's residence, 
which was designed for housing sheep, was reno- 
vated and made suitable for the purpose. My part 
in the arrangements was to make some seats, 
which I did with my own hands. I was rather 
suspicious from the first that what I was doing 
might be rather superfluous, but it was thought 
the proper thing, of course, to have seats in a 
place of worship. Later we learned that the na- 
tives do not see things just as we do in this and 
in many other things; a piece of matting or the 
bare ground would be much preferred by them 
to benches, or chairs even. 

Early in May the British army entered Rohil- 
cund, and Bareilly was taken from the mutineers ; 



64 Twi:NTY-ON^ Years in India. 

Khan Bahadur Khan, with his followers, had fled 
in hot haste to the jungles towards Nepal. Many 
of the leaders were captured and were executed 
or banished to the Andaman Islands. Those wdio 
had remained loyal to the British and protected 
English people during the ascendency of the mu- 
tineers, were handsomely rewarded. Captain 
Gowan and other Europeans were protected in a 
village fifteen or twenty miles out of Bareilly for 
months, and finally made their escape. General 
Gowan, as he became in time, for many years 
supported a native minister and a school in that 
village. He was a very warm friend of our Mis- 
sion, and subscribed liberally for its support up 
to the time of his death, which occurred only a 
few years since. 

Immediately upon the taking of Bareilly the 
country settled down and became quiet, as though 
nothing had happened. This certainly would not 
have been if the people generally had been in- 
volved in the uprising. In a very brief time the 
roads were opened, and travel on the main lines 
of communication was resumed and became safe 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 65 

as before. We soon heard that our goods, that 
we dispatched from Calcutta nearly three months 
before, and that we hardly ever expected to see 
again, had actually arrived at the foot of the 
mountains, and we were called upon to make ar- 
rangements for their being brought up the hills 
to Naini Tal. This was cheering news, indeed. 
Soon after the way to Naini Tal was opened by 
Moradabad, Mr. Knowles joined us with his fam- 
ily, coming from Meerut. 

Mr. Knowles was an officer in a volunteer 
company of cavalry which did good service in the 
mutiny, and would have been well cared for had 
he chosen to remain in Government service, but 
he chose service for Christ in the mission field, 
and has had a most useful career. After nearly 
forty-five years of uninterrupted service, having 
had only two years' furlough to England in the 
meantime, at the last session of the North India 
Conference he took a superannuated relation. 
He is the senior missionary in our service in the 
field, and proposes to spend his last days in the 
field of his life work. He is a superior scholar 
5 



66 Twi:NTY-ONE: Ye:ars in India. 

in the languages of India, and an able preacher, 
both in English and in the vernaculars. 

We had a service in English in the midweek 
as well as the Sunday service, which was very 
well attended by our English friends; at these 
services we preached in turn. We also began 
Bazar preaching, which was conducted by Mr. 
Parsons and Joel Janvier, the native minister. 
Many plans had to be considered for opening our 
work in the plains. Rohilcund, with the moun- 
tain country to the north, had been accepted as 
our field. There came a letter from our Mis- 
sion rooms in New York authorizing us to re- 
consider our field, if we thought it desirable to 
do so on account of the mutiny. 

It seemed probable that it would be a long 
time before things would be so settled that we 
could begin our work ; but instead of abandoning 
our field, Dr. Butler proposed an immediate en- 
largement of our plans by occupying the chief 
cities of Oudh, with a force of not less than 
twenty-five foreign missionaries. He declared 
that this had been his plan from the beginning. 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India*. 67 

To our great delight, the scheme he outHned was 
accepted by the Board, and we were informed that 
a strong re-enforcement to our number would be 
sent out the following year. This was indeed 
cheering news to us. We now took Oudh into 
our plans, and the time seemed to have come to 
arrange for an immediate occupancy of Lucknow, 
the capital of the province. Dr. Butler was a 
man of great faith, of unflinching courage, and 
unbounded energy; just the man needed at that 
time. A cautious or a timid man would have 
hesitated, and the opportunity would possibly 
have been lost to us, to lay the broad foundations 
that were laid for our work, and which the grand 
results of the years gone by have abundantly jus- 
tified. 

The chief commissioner and other high offi- 
cials of Oudh gave us much encouragement to 
begin at once and occupy Lucknow. Early in 
September, Dr. Butler and Mr. Pierce left for 
Lucknow, where they found things even more 
encouraging than they anticipated. They soon 
fixed upon a location, purchased property, and 



68 TwENTY-ONK Ye:ars in India. 

began the preparation of residences for the mis- 
sionaries who were to conduct the work of the 
station. On the way down from the hills. Dr. 
Butler and Mr. Pierce spent a Sunday in Bareilly 
as the guests of Colonel Troop, Dr. Butler's 
friend in Bareilly before the mutiny occurred. Dr. 
Butler settled in Bareilly in January, 1857, ^^^ 
opened a service for English people in his parlor. 
Colonel Troop was officiating as the commanding 
officer of the station. Colonel Sibbald, the com- 
mandant, had gone for a tour in the hills. About 
the middle of May, Colonel Troop sent word to 
Dr. Butler, informing him that the native troops 
could not be relied upon, and that it was his 
opinion that they would mutiny in a very few 
days ; that they were only waiting to mature their 
plans. He said he was about to issue an order 
for all foreign ladies and non-combatants to leave 
at once for Naini Tal, where they would be com- 
paratively safe if the sepoys did mutiny. They 
were all in a very exposed condition in Bareilly, 
and there would be but a very slight hope of es- 
cape should the mutiny actually occur. He re- 



TwEnTy-onk Years in India. 69 

quested Dr. Butler to go with his family also, and 
use his influence to allay the irritation among the 
ladies his order would be likely to create. These 
ladies were mostly wives of officers in the army 
and civil officers of government. 

People generally had confidence in the sepoys, 
and could not be made to think they would mutiny 
and turn upon them, as they had done in other 
places. The officers and families often become 
strongly attached to the men with whom they 
are so intimately connected. There is a feeling of 
comradeship awakened in military regiments that 
is very marked and interesting. It is so every- 
where, but it was especially so in the service in 
those days. The officers had led their men in 
many campaigns, and on many a battlefield, and 
they had never failed them. It was not strange 
that it was hard for the officers to believe that 
their men would turn against them, protesting 
their loyalty, even with tears in many instances, 
as they did, when the ladies and children were be- 
ing sent away to a place of safety. In some 
cases the sepoys came to their officers and begged 



70 Twe^nty-one: Yejars in India. 

them not to send away their famihes, as it was 
a reflection upon them; this when they fully ex- 
pected to mutiny in a very short time. It is not 
easy for Anglo-Saxons to realize what adepts at 
fraud and deception Orientals are. The ladies 
sent from Bareilly with Dr. Butler met the com- 
manding officer on his return to Bareilly at the 
foot of the mountains, about a dozen or fifteen 
miles from Naini Tal. He was greatly incensed 
towards Colonel Troop, and expressed his dis- 
pleasure in terms not complimentary. His wife 
and daughters were among the ladies dispatched 
to the hills. At first he threatened to compel 
them all to return, but he hardly dared to take 
the responsibility of anything so rash. Then he 
insisted that his own wife and daughters should 
return, but he finally thought better of it, and 
relented. He stoutly maintained that the sepoys 
under his command would not prove false to their 
salt, that such events as sending away the people 
were only calculated to provoke mutiny. He, 
however, after a time, went on his way to Ba- 
reilly, and the ladies and Dr. Butler pursued their 



Twenty-one Years in India. 71 

retreat to the refuge in the mountains, which was 
to serve them so well in the months to come. 

For two weeks everything remained quiet, 
and many were sure the danger had passed, if, 
indeed, there had been any. During this period, 
Colonel Troop was the subject of much ridicule. 
Monday morning, June ist, the usual mails did 
not arrive, and much alarm was felt on its ac- 
count. The next morning one and another of the 
officers began to arrive, many of them without 
hats or coats, and all more dead than alive. So 
the storm had actually burst at last. 

On Sunday morning, May 31st, the sepoys 
mutinied, and fired on their officers; the first to 
fall was Colonel Sibbald, the commanding officer. 
Colonel Troop was dressing for church, when one 
of his servants rushed in and told him to flee as 
the mutineers were at the front door arranging 
to set fire to the dwelling. His faithful Sais, 
groom, had hastily saddled his horse and had him 
at the rear of his house; he mounted and made 
his way round the eastern end of the city and 
took the road to Naini Tal, where he at length 



72 Twi:NTY-ONE: Yi:ars in India. 

arrived in safety. He told me that during the in- 
terval of quiet, before the outbreak occurred, one 
of the ladies wrote an article for one of the Eng- 
lish papers, severely criticising him, and in some 
strange way it came back to Naini Tal some 
months afterward, while they were shut up there. 
The lady who wrote it came to him and, with 
tears, apologized. He begged her not to give her- 
self a moment's distress, that it was God's way 
of sending them deliverance from an awful death. 
Dr. Butler and Mr. Pierce preached for some 
of the regiments stationed at Bareilly, and ar- 
ranged with the two Presbyterian chaplains, one 
of the Forty-second, and the other of the Ninety- 
third Highlanders, for me to come down and take 
their duties for a month and give them a change 
and rest for this time. They had been at the 
taking of Lucknow and on the campaign that 
followed, ending with the taking of Bareilly, and 
all through the hot season that followed, so they 
much needed rest and a change to Naini Tal. I 
was very glad to relieve them, as it would give 
me an opportunity to look the ground over and 



Twi:NTY-ON^ YKARS IN InDIA. 73 

see what could be done towards opening our 
work in that place. This was to be my station, 
as soon as we could make a beginning. I had 
quarters in the officers' mess-house of the Forty- 
second Regiment. 

On my first Sunday I had four services to 
conduct. Our good friend, Colonel Troop, took 
me in his carriage around to each place where 
service was to be held, and made me acquainted 
with the routine of duties I was to perform, and 
introduced me to the officers commanding the dif- 
ferent regiments with which I was expected to 
hold service. The last service of the day was held 
on the parade ground just as the sun was setting. 
The regiment was formed up as a hollow square, 
with one side open. Here I stood with a drum 
for my pulpit, the colonel of the regiment and 
other mounted officers standing about me. I ad- 
dressed them and felt that much of the Divine 
presence attended us, and I think many felt it 
good to be there. Many years afterward my 
friend, then General Troop, told me that that 
regiment was at that time without a chaplain, 



74 Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

and that a petition was sent in for my appoint- 
ment as such. This, he said, is something you 
never knew of, nor had I ever heard of such a 
thing. While I was in Bareilly, Dr. Butler re- 
turned from Lucknow, and I had the pleasure of 
introducing him to our colonel of the Forty-sec- 
ond Regiment, who invited him to dine with the 
officers at their mess-room. We were treated 
with the greatest respect and courtesy, and I be- 
came much attached to several of the officers of 
this famous regiment, known as the "Black 
Watch." 

While here in Bareilly we did what we could 
to arrange for the reopening of our work. The 
magistrate of Bareilly, Mr. John Inglis, sug- 
gested that we should apply to Government for a 
place known as Cashmere Kotee, a place five miles 
away on the opposite side of the city from can- 
tonments, where the military and civil offices are 
located. Cashmere Kotee had been a palatial resi- 
dence in its day; it was built by one of the old- 
school civilians who had lived there in the style 
of a Nawab; but it had long since ceased to be 



Twe:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. 75 

regarded as a desirable residence on account of 
its location, and so had passed into the hands of 
a wealthy native, who had joined the mutineers 
and had been executed, and the estate confiscated. 
Mr. Inglis proposed that we apply to Govern- 
ment for it on a nominal rental, and as it ulti- 
mately would be sold at auction, we might bid it 
in and obtain it at a very low sum. As there was 
a village belonging to the property, it would give 
us an annual income of a few hundred rupees and 
quite a large quantity of land for building pur- 
poses. It was thought it would serve as ad- 
mirably for our orphanages, and for our Mis- 
sion as a whole. The application was made, and 
we could now only wait the action of Government. 
Dr. Butler left me and went on his way to Naini 
Tal. 

It was now arranged for Mr. Parsons to go 
down and begin work in Moradabad, while I was 
to go to Bareilly as soon as our location could be 
secured. As yet we had no reply to our applica- 
tion for Cashmere Kotee. Dr. Butler had pur- 
chased property as a site for our Mission in Naini 



"jd Twe:nty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

Tal. A fine location was secured, consisting 
of several acres of land in a most central place, 
well suited for our schools and Church purposes. 
There was a house on it, but as the name indi- 
cated, the chief value of the location did not con- 
sist in the residence; it was very appropriately 
called ''The Ruins," but with some slight repairs 
it made a comfortable home for a good number 
of years. A school building was already being- 
built and nearing completion, and plans had been 
prepared for the erection of a Mission church. 
Major Ramsey, Commissioner of Kumaon and 
Gharwal, who was a warm friend, and had sub- 
scribed most liberally for it, laid the corner-stone 
one morning in October, after which a hymn was 
sung, and a prayer offered, for a special blessing 
upon this, our first place of worship erected in 
India. 

Soon after this event, Dr. Butler, with his 
family and Mr. Pierce's, left us to take up their 
residence in Lucknow, where Mr. Pierce was at 
the time. Joel Janvier, our native minister, ac- 
companied them. It was a long and trying jour- 
ney, occupying about four days. The custom was 



Twenty-one Years in India. "j^ 

at that time to travel at night, resting during the 
day, and our only way of getting about was by 
Dooley Dak. A dooley was a cot with a frame- 
work covered with light, coarse cotton cloth ; this 
was carried on men's shoulders. Six or eight 
men were required to a dooley, with one man to 
carry a torch. When a journey was to be made a 
man was called from the Bazar who had charge 
of this service, under the direction of the magis- 
trate of the district. He would bring a book 
with him, in which we would write our orders for 
bearers, the day and hour we wished to start. The 
men would be ready at every Chaukey, about ten 
miles, for a change. In this way we could make 
a journey of fifty or sixty miles in a night. This 
sort of travel is now done away with, the railway 
having taken its place. We soon moved into the 
mission house, Mr. Knowles and family occupy- 
ing one part, while we occupied the other. 

I preached my first sermon in Hindustani in 
the temporary place of worship made out of the 
sheep-house, in September, 1858. 

Mr. Knowles and myself made several preach- 



78 Twi:nTy-one: Years in India. 

ing tours about in different directions. I made 
a journey to Almorah and made the acquaintance 
of Rev. J. H. Budden, a missionary of the Lon- 
don Missionary Society, with whom we had most 
pleasant relations for many years. One of his 
daughters became the wife of Dr. Gray, of our 
Mission, now living in New Jersey. Another 
daughter. Miss Anna Budden, is a member of our 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and has 
done a great work in Eastern Kumaon. A son 
of my old friend, Mr. Anson Budden, holds a 
high and responsible position under Government 
in the educational department. A year before 
leaving India, I had the pleasure to attend the 
dedication services of a beautiful church, built 
through the instrumentality of the children, as a 
memorial to their honored father, who labored 
very faithfully for more than forty years for the 
people of these mountains. Mr. Budden was a 
scholarly and able missionary, and a brother 
greatly beloved. Our relations were very inti- 
mate and delightful for many years. I felt it to 
be a great honor to be permitted to preach the 
sermon on the occasion of the dedication of this 



Twenty-one: Ykars in India. 79 

beautiful memorial to a good and noble mission- 
ary whom I loved and honored. 

To return to my narrative, we conducted a 
service on Sunday and once during the week for 
European soldiers located at Naini Tal, and vis- 
ited the sick in the military hospital. 

By the end of the year the walls of the church 
were up ready for the roof, and a neat, commo- 
dious school building was completed ready for use. 
In January we went down to Moradabad, found 
Mr. Parsons and family living in a tent pitched 
under a magnificent tree with wide extended 
boughs, thus affording protection from the chilly 
night air and the heat of the sun at mid-day. 

We received a very warm welcome, and it 
seemed as though we had entered another coun- 
try. In Naini Tal it was cold and rough, but 
here it was like the end of September or begin- 
ning of October. Mr. Parsons had secured the 
loan of a tent for us, and we were soon settled in 
our canvas home, and greatly enjoyed the change 
from the mountains to the plains, and were eager 
to begin the work to which we had been so long 
looking forward. 



CHAPTER V. 

Opening Work in Moradabad and Bareilly. 

I HAD gone down to Moradabad at Dr. But- 
ler's request, to assist Mr. Parsons to get settled, 
while I was waiting for the way to open to go to 
Bareilly. We were directed to secure a residence, 
either by renting, or purchase. The residences 
of the station for the use of Europeans were all 
burned in the mutiny ; in most instances the walls 
were left standing; only a few of them had been 
repaired up to the time we arrived, and these were 
occupied by military officers. It seemed, there- 
fore, quite impossible to find a place without 
building, and that could not be done before the 
hot weather would set in, and Mr. and Mrs. Par- 
sons could not live in tents at that time. At 
length we succeeded in finding a place that might, 
we thought, be made habitable with some repair- 
ing. We at once secured the place and set about 

80 



TwKnTy-one: Years in India. 8i 

making the necessary repairs. While we were 
thus engaged a man came in to see tis who Hved 
about twenty miles out on the road to Garmakh- 
teser on the Ganges. He said he represented a 
class of people who lived out in that part of the 
district, who were called "Mazhibi Sikhs," and 
that they all desired to become Christians. The 
word "Mazhibi" pertains to religion; strictly it 
means religious, and in their case it meant that 
they for some cause had embraced the Sikh re- 
ligion. It seems probable that they had been led 
by some of their Garus, or teachers, to embrace 
the religion of Nanak. This man who came to 
us at that time, told us this story, which intensely 
interested us. He said that before the mutiny 
their Garu, or teacher, heard the missionaries of 
Futtigarh preach at a great mela on the Ganges, 
just before his death, which occurred during the 
time of the mutiny. He told them as well as he 
could about what he had heard, and then said, 
"Some day, before long, the missionaries will come 
to Moradabad, and when you hear that they have 

come, go to them and do what they tell you." We 
6 



8z Twi:nty-onk Ye:ars in India. 

were, as can be imagined, thrilled by his story, 
and set a day when we would go out and meet 
as many as could come together at the village of 
Jua, about twenty miles out on the road to the 
Ganges. Upon our arrival, on the day appointed, 
we found a large number of people assembled and 
waiting for us, and eager for instruction as to 
what they must do to become Christians. We 
saw at once that they were poor and very igno- 
rant ; beyond this we knew but very little of them 
at that time. We were greatly moved, however, 
by their desire to ally themselves to us, and to be 
instructed as to what they must do to be saved. 
The hours spent with them that day under the 
shade of a fine, large tree, will never be forgot- 
ten. After speaking to them for some time, we 
told them that we would have a season of prayer, 
and we explained what it is to pray, and how we 
can come to God and speak to Him, and He will 
hear us and help us, though we can not see Him. 
They all prostrated themselves before God, 
after the manner of Orientals, on their faces. I 
led in prayer, speaking very slowly and in the 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 83 

most simple language. I soon noticed that they 
were trying to repeat the words after me. I then 
proceeded, a single sentence at a time, waiting 
for them to repeat it over after me. In this way 
they began to learn the language of prayer. Re- 
peating it after us helped to fix their attention, 
and at the same time teach them the language of 
prayer. We afterwards very generally adopted 
this method and found it very useful. 

Among the children present, I noticed a little 
girl who was very fair for a native ; she was really 
a beautiful child, very bright and pleasing in her 
ways. I saw her grow up to become a very use- 
ful and intelligent woman. I taught her medicine, 
and she gained great honor in treating the people 
for their diseases and showing them what they 
must do to be saved. When I went out last, 
though very ill and nearing her end, she begged 
her friends to bring her to see me. I found her 
rejoicing in Christ as her Savior. A few days 
later she passed within the veil whither Christ, 
who was very precious to her, had gone before. 

We had been deeply saddened in the mutiny 



84 Twenty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

days by the cruel death of the missionaries of 
Futtigarh, four families massacred on the parade 
ground at Cawnpore by order of Nana Sahib, 
but now we were reaping the harvest of their 
faithful sowing. The truth preached by them, 
that may have seemed to fall on very sterile 
ground, had sprung up in places little thought of, 
and in ways unknown to man. So God takes care 
of the seed His servants sow. Not a word spoken, 
not a prayer offered, not a tear shed, not a life 
given for Him, shall be in vain. 

This movement among these people was hailed 
by us all with great delight; it was naturally 
thought to be of great importance. We were 
aware that we had great ignorance to deal with, 
and that the motives of these people were mixed 
with much that was material and sordid ; but still 
it seemed evident that there was much about it 
that was hopeful, and that the Holy Spirit was 
shedding His blessed light on these dark minds. 
So we determined to watch over this movement 
and encourage it in every way in our power, and 
at the same time be on our guard and not expect 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India. 85 

too much on one hand, nor be too suspicious and 
doubting on the other. We soon learned that 
they did not bear a very good reputation; they 
were generally Chaukadars, or watchmen. They 
were made such on the principle "that it takes 
a thief to catch a thief,'' or perhaps it is a principle 
of honor among thieves in India, not to steal from 
those who are under the protection of one of their 
own clan. Later, in the history of our work, we 
should have been less suspicious, and, perhaps, 
baptized them sooner than we did. I was at that 
time disinclined to administer the ordinance with- 
out some indication of the fact that those to whom 
it was administered had some good degree of ap- 
preciation of what it all signified. 

In India the circumstances are very peculiar, 
and baptism has a significance among the people 
that it does not have with us, and that it does 
not have among any other people in the world. 
They may think as they will, and call themselves 
by whatever name they please; so long as they 
are not baptized their relation to their own people 
remains unchanged ; but as vSoon as baptized, the}^ 



86 Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

are cut off from their own people and known as 
Christians. 

To gain this much is an advantage, as it 
places them under our care where we can instruct 
them without hindrance. A man expresses a de- 
sire for Christian baptism ; if sincere, as we must 
think him to be until we have some evidence to 
the contrary, he shows the work of the Holy 
Spirit in his heart, and so justifies the administra- 
tion of the ordinance to him. It is not laid down 
in the Scriptures how much light a man must 
have to be entitled to receive baptism. This, I 
think, must be left to the administrator very 
largely. It is clear that he must have some 
knowledge of sin, and of Christ as a Savior from 
it. I think our missionaries in India are sure as 
far as this, as to how these cases are to be treated. 
A certain degree of knowledge and conviction is 
necessary, but people asking baptism should not 
be held off too long ; but baptizing them, we must 
provide for their instruction. Here lies the great 
problem to be solved in India to-day, how are we 
to provide for the instruction of the masses who 



TwKNTY-ONE Years in India. 87 

are urgently asking Christian baptism? The 
urgency of the case is sure to increase. This re- 
sponsibiHty is upon the Church. Will she meet it ? 
God grant that she may ! 

This movement among the Sikhs brought this 
subject prominently before us : When may baptism 
be properly administered to these people? It 
took some years for us to reach a settled conclu- 
sion as to the proper mode of procedure in these 
cases. It seems to be well settled now in the 
minds of our missionaries. 

In a few weeks the house we had rented for 
Mr. Parsons and family was ready for occupancy, 
and they moved in. About this time Dr. Butler 
wrote, asking me to meet him in Bareilly, when 
we had to make a journey out into the district 
of about twenty miles to meet Mr. Inglis to see 
if we could come to some agreement as to our 
occupying Cashmere Kotee. We found him in 
camp, and had a most delightful evening with 
him. Here it may be well to explain that Eng- 
lish officials spend the most of the cold season, 
which lasts from October until March or April, 



88 Twenty-one: Years in India. 

out in camp, living in tents and moving about 
among the people. They spend usually a day or 
two in a place, then moving on to another lo- 
cality. They, in this way, become acquainted 
with the condition and needs of the people, hear 
their complaints, settle their disputes, and save a 
great deal of litigation in the courts, and conse- 
quently expense and trouble. This kind of ad- 
ministration accords with the ideas of the people. 
I have seen officers settle cases in five minutes on 
the ground, among the people, that would have 
taken months to settle in the courts in the usual 
way, and save the parties a great amount of 
travel, expense, and worry. The Government re- 
quires officers to be out among the people in this 
way nearly all the cold weather, and makes an 
extra allowance to them to meet expenses in- 
volved. It is most delightful in camp in India 
during the cold season. The weather is almost 
uniformly pleasant and not so cold as to be un- 
pleasant. Missionaries, as a rule, spend as much 
of their time in this way as possible, and find it 
exceedingly profitable. Many of our native 



TwKNTY-ONE YE^ARS IN InDIA. 89 

Christians live out in the district, and the mis- 
sionaries can only visit them at their homes dur- 
ing this season and make the acquaintance of their 
heathen neighbors, hold service with them, and 
carry the knowledge of Christ to many villages 
where it would otherwise not be known. 

Itinerating is a very important department of 
the work, and if more of it could be done it would 
be all the better. The ladies of the Woman's So- 
ciety are prosecuting this kind of work nowadays 
with much vigor and success. 

As a result of our visit to Mr. Inglis, it was 
settled that we should proceed and occupy Cash- 
mere Kotee, not waiting longer for a reply to 
our application to the lieutenant-governor of the 
Northwest. Mr. Inglis felt quite safe in assum- 
ing that our application would be successful, and 
expressed his great pleasure that we were to open 
work in Bareilly at once. I returned to Morada- 
bad and proceeded to complete arrangements for 
removing to Bareilly. In a few days our belong- 
ings, in charge of our servants, were on their way 
to our new home. 



90 Twe:nty-one: Years in India. 

We had a few days before engaged as Khan- 
samah, or table servant, a young Mohammedan 
named Peer Bakhs. He was the servant of an 
EngHsh family of our acquaintance in the time 
of the mutiny, and was very faithful and true to 
them, and did much for them in the way of sav- 
ing their property, and in aiding them to make 
their escape. He lived with us about twelve years, 
and was one of the best and most reliable servants 
I have ever known, and we became greatly at- 
tached to him. His health failed, so that he could 
not live in the climate of the mountains where our 
home was, and we were obliged to let him return 
to his native place in the plains, where he passed 
away in a few years. He never publicly professed 
faith in Christ, but I believe he secretly trusted 
in Him as our Savior from our sins. 

We left on the evening of February 25th, and 
arrived at our destination the following morn- 
ing. We found what had once been a palatial 
residence, in the center of a large plat of ground 
surrounded by a ditch and tall Indian grass. The 
whole place was sadly run down and desolate in 



Twenty-one) Years in India. 91 

the extreme. The walls were blackened and 
broken, the roof had fallen in over a considerable 
portion of the building, the windows were broken, 
and it was generally in a most dilapidated and un- 
inviting condition. It had been used by the muti- 
neers and by other bodies of native soldiers^ by 
the police, and, last of all, by a company of Euro- 
pean soldiers. 

It showed unmistakable marks of age, hard 
usage, and neglect. We succeeded in making a 
room or two habitable; but in the night jackals 
roamed at will through it in spite of all we could 
do to the contrary, as if contesting our right of 
occupancy. Perhaps they did not know of our 
arrival, for they never troubled us again. We 
learned later, fortunately for us, that the place 
was infested with a large and very venomous black 
snake. I say fortunately for us, as it was well 
that we did not know this at the beginning, as 
we had quite enough already to depress and dis- 
courage us without this. About one year before 
this a crisis came in the history of Bareilly. Two 
armies arrived, one from the East under Sir Col- 



93 Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

lin Campbell, the other from the West, known as 
General Penney's division, though the general 
himself had been killed some days before their 
arrival. As this force opened fire on the western 
gate of the city, Sir Collin responded on the east 
side, and before night these armies fought their 
way through the city and met in the grounds of 
the Government College. The mutineers were 
broken and fleeing with all possible haste away to 
the jungles towards Nepal. This, of course, 
must mark a crisis in the history of this city and 
section of the country. The morning of the 26th 
of February, 1859, two forces met here as before, 
one from the East and the other from the West, 
approaching along the same lines as those of the 
previous year. The party from the West was a 
missionary and his wife, and the other from the 
East was a native minister, his wife, and two chil- 
dren — a son and daughter — in an ox cart. 

No booming cannon announced our arrival 
that morning; no bugle blasts were heard; no 
flashing sabers or bristling bayonets were seen. 
It was a day of small things, as the world esti- 



Twenty-one Years in India. 93 

mates values, and yet it was a day that would 
mark a more momentous crisis in the history of 
Bareilly than any that had come to her before. 
The time will come when the historian will v/ish 
to gather up the items of this day as they oc- 
curred, and it will be recognized as marking a 
new and better era to all this province, of which 
Bareilly is the capital. It was a momentous hour 
to us ; we felt that we were this day commissioned 
as ambassadors for Christ to this great, turbulent, 
and wicked city. We felt Christ very near us ; the 
ground on which we stood seemed to be holy 
ground. I think I never felt the grandeur of our 
high and holy calling as missionaries as I did that 
hour, I shall never forget that day; it was a 
marked day in my life. I felt it to be a very 
great honor to be permitted to raise the Gospel 
standard here. But we had much to do to get a 
place ready to shelter ourselves for the night, but 
we were soon settled as well as we could expect 
to be at this juncture of affairs. 

I think it was the day of our arrival that a 
Sawar, native trooper, came dashing into our 



94 Twknty-one: Ykars in India. 

compound — the inclosure surrounding a resi- 
dence — bearing a communication from the Mag- 
istrate Sahib John Ingiis, in which he expressed 
his pleasure to know that we had arrived, and re- 
quested me not to begin preaching in the city for 
a few days as he would be absent in camp. He 
said it was best that he should be in the station 
when we opened our work in the city, as the peo- 
ple were much excited and might give trouble. 
They were very hostile towards the Government 
and Christians generally at that particular time, 
and it was feared that our preaching might serve 
as an occasion for an outbreak. 

So, for a few weeks, we were occupied in re- 
pairing our residence and in visiting the villages 
about the city within a distance of a few miles, so 
that they could be reached in the evening, the 
cooler part of the day. It was our purpose to go 
into the city and deliver our message there as 
soon as possible. 

In a few weeks we learned that Mr. Inglis 
had returned and was present at the station. The 
word station may need explanation; it is gen- 



Twe:nty-one: Yi:ars in India. 95 

erally applied to the portion of a city where for- 
eigners hve; a raihvay depot the Enghsh call a 
station. Out of the Presidency towns they gen- 
erally live outside the city in a section set apart 
for the troops and Government offices, and the 
foreign residents generally; this section is called 
a station or cantonments. This section is care- 
fully laid out, excellent roads are made, and all 
is under strict sanitary regulations. These sta- 
tions in India are usually very beautiful and at- 
tractive. 

India, itself, all through the great Gangetic 
valley, is very beautiful. It is a vast plain, very 
fertile, covered in certain seasons with vast fields 
of wheat and other grains peculiar to the coun- 
try. The people live in villages, which are squalid 
and uninteresting, as explained in the first chap- 
ter. But there is usually a grove of trees 
near by, and the beautiful palm-tree, with 
its feathery top, is seen in almost any direction to 
which you may turn your attention. 

We now determined to make a beginning in 
the city. It contained a large Moslem popula- 



96 Twenty-one: Years in India. 

tion, which was regarded especially fanatical and 
turbulent. Many of this class had been tried in 
the courts and convicted of murder in the mutiny, 
and executed or banished to the Kali-Pani, the 
Andamans. The people were excited and very 
bitter in their feelings, and were altogether in a 
bad frame of mind. 

Just at this time, and under these conditions, 
we proposed to begin preaching in the very heart 
of the city. Never had such a thing been at- 
tempted before. It was indeed a critical under- 
taking, perhaps more so than we at the time sup- 
posed. What would be the effect upon the peo- 
ple? How would they look upon it, and how 
would they receive it at this time ? It was in this 
way the officers of Government looked at it, and 
not unnaturally so, as they knew that many would 
think that the Government had sent us, and was 
going to compel them to become Christians. 

We thought it the only thing to do, and were 
not in the least worried as to results. W^e felt 
that we were not our own, we were not going on 



Twenty-one Years in India. 97 

our own business, or on our charges; that the 
work was the Lord's, and we were going at His 
command. We proposed in His name to set up 
our standard in the city, and ieit we were in the 
way He was leading us, and that he would make 
us victorious over all our enemies, so we need not 
fear. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Beginning Preaching in the City ; Baptism of 
Our First Convert. 

We soon became acquainted with a number 
of people living in cantonments, who took great 
pains to call on us and express an interest in our 
work. The influence of the mutiny was fresh 
in the minds of all at this time, and it had a tend- 
ency to lead many English people to feel a deeper 
interest in missions than they had done before. 
In the early history of the British in India the 
only thought that moved them seemed to be gain. 
It was so with the company in England, and it 
was none the less so with the company's repre- 
sentatives in India. Gradually the people of Eng- 
land awoke to the fact that India had been given 
to them for a higher purpose than commercial ad- 
vantage, and that a responsibility was laid upon 
them to give the people of this great empire the 
Gospel. At first the company refused to permit 

98 



TwENTY-ONB Years in India. 99 

missionaries to enter the country; but at length 
it was compelled to give way, and permit them 
to labor for the people without restraint or inter- 
ference. 

Public sentiment, too, in England demanded 
the abolition of suttee— the burning of widows 
with the dead bodies of their husbands — and the 
patronizing of idolatrous shrines and practices 
on the part of the Government. There have been 
all along among the representatives of the East 
India Company some excellent Christian men; 
but they were comparatively few in the early his- 
tory of the British in India. The majority ig- 
nored all responsibility towards the people in a 
religious sense. One effect of the mutiny was to 
awaken a feeling of obligation to God and the 
people of this great country, and many were led 
to feel an interest in religious work in the coun- 
try as they had not felt it before. The impression 
I received from my last years in India leads me to 
feel that among English officials now there is not 
the interest in missionary work that there was 
when we began our work immediately after the 



^■oic. 



loo Twe:nty-one: Ykars in India. 

mutiny. There seems a tendency to disparage 
missionary work, and to criticise native Chris- 
tians, that is more manifest in certain circles of 
EngHsh official life, than was the case years ago. 
I doubt if there are as many outspoken friends of 
missions among high officials, either in the army 
or in the civil service, as there were in the years 
following the mutiny. This is not because of any 
lack of success in the work, but from a lack of 
interest in religion generally. I would not have 
it inferred that there are no earnest, devoted 
Christian men in the service in India to-day; I 
am glad to say I am sure there are many such; 
but men like Sir Henry Ramsey, Sir Henry and 
John Lawrence, Sir Donald McLeod, and Sir 
Herbert Edwards, are not very often met with 
nowadays. 

Sometimes I think it may be that some great 
calamity is needed to bring a certain class of high 
officials of India nearer to God. I am sure God 
is presiding over the English in India, and only 
as He is honored will they prosper and escape 
His judgments. 



'f wknty-one: Years in India. ioi 

To return to our narrative: we felt the time 
had come when we must unfurl the banner of the 
Cross of Christ in the heart of the city of Ba- 
reilly. Evening is the best time generally for 
Bazar preaching, so we arranged to begin at that 
time. We resolved to make our opening in the 
Chauk, the most public place in the city. We 
were fully conscious of possible danger, but we 
thought little of that; we were most anxious to 
feel assured that our dear Lord was leading us, 
and that He should go with us, and stand by us in 
our effort to make Him known to the bigoted 
and wicked people of this large city, though nat- 
urally no worse than we are, and whose souls are 
just as precious as our own. 

Before leaving for the Bazar, we met in my 
study for a season of prayer. We deeply felt our 
dependence upon God, and were sure He would 
not fail us in this time of need. I think I can 
truly say that I have never felt Christ so near me 
as I did in my efforts to preach Him to the peo- 
ple under such circumstances as surrounded us 
at that time. I have felt His special presence and 



I02 TwE:N'rY-oNi: Years in India. 

support in all efforts to make Him known in a 
way that has made the fact of His approval per- 
fectly conclusive to my mind. After prayer we 
went immediately to the Chauk where we pro- 
posed to make our beginning in the name of the 
Lord. 

The city of Bareilly is long and narrow. One 
main street runs through it from east to west. 
This is fully three miles long. About midway is 
what is called the Chauk ; but this is not a square, 
but the street for some distance widens out to 
more than double its usual width. This becomes 
the official and business center of the city, the 
more important public buildings are located here 
and other buildings needed in the government of 
the city. This place is always crowded with peo- 
ple buying and selling in the afternoons and early 
evening. The Banyas spread their wares and 
commodities out on the ground, and people crowd 
about to buy. It is a busy, noisy place; the air is 
full of dust ; not a very good place to preach, one 
might think, but the people are here, and our aim 
is to get at the people. Here, at one end of the 



Twenty-one Years in India. 103 

Chauk, we found a place where we could stand 
elevated a little above the crowd. 

I began by reading John iii, 16: "Kyiinki 
Khada ne jahan ko aisa piyar kiya hai, ke, us ne 
apna iklauta beta bakhsha, taki jo koi us per iman 
lawe halak na howe, balki hamesha ki zindagi 
pawe." Attention was immediately secured, and 
all business ceased, all seemed anxious to catch 
every word, and the closest attention was paid 
to all we said. I began by saying something like 
the following, as near as I can now recall : "You 
will wish to know who we are^ and what we have 
come for? Well, I will tell you. We are not Gov- 
ernment servants, but servants of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Savior of the world. We have come 
to tell you about Him. He says, God loved us 
and sent Him into the world to die for us on ac- 
count of our sins, that we might not perish, but 
have eternal life." I said : "We are missionaries 
and have come to live among you as neighbors and 
friends, and teach you what you must do to be 
saved. I know you do not think as we do, but it 
is wise to inquire and try to find the true way to 



I04 Tw^NTY-ON^ Yi:ars in India. 

heaven. We can not compel you to become Chris- 
tians, we can only show you the way; then it re- 
mains for you to do as we wish you to do or not, 
and the responsibility must rest upon you. If 
you wished to go to Moradabad, and there were 
two roads before you, and you could not tell 
which one to take, and I should tell you to take 
the one to the right, and you should take the one 
to the left, saying, *I do not believe the Sahib 
knows,' — so you see you can choose which road 
you will take. Well, you go a long way and be- 
come so very tired, and find out that you have 
taken the wrong road, and had all this trouble for 
nothing; you could not blame me. You would 
say the Sahib did know, and I ought to have be- 
lieved him. I wish I had believed him, it would 
have saved me so much trouble! Well, brothers, 
there is only one way to heaven for us all; now, 
do you not believe that? I know you do. Now, 
where is that way? That is the great question. 
You must seek to know the truth, for the truth 
will stand," etc. Then I said: "You know a 
few months ago Khan Bahadur Khan thought he 



Twe:nty-one: Ykars in India. 105 

was a great man and called himself 'Nawab Sa- 
hib/ and you people all made a very low salaam, 
and said, 'Nawab >Sahib !' He thought he would 
kill all the Christians so that there would not be 
any left in India. He sat right over there, and 
had Judge Robertson and Hay Sahib brought be- 
fore him, and said they were kafirs, infidels, and 
ought to die, so they were killed. Where is Khan 
Bahadur to-day ? He is out in the jungles and is 
being hunted like a wild beast, and very likely will 
be caught and hanged, as you all know he ought 
to be. Well, now, in a few months' time mission- 
aries have come here and are preaching in this 
Bazar, where they never preached before! Well, 
friends and neighbors, what does all this mean? 
I will tell you what I think it means. It is this : 
God is against these people who have been mak- 
ing all this trouble, and trying to kill all the Chris- 
tians in the country, and that this is to become a 
Christian country." The people were utterly 
amazed, so much so that they had not a word to 
say in reply. Joseph then spoke, going over 
much the same ground that I had gone over. He 



io6 Twenty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

was a large man with a strong voice. He was a 
powerful speaker in Hindustani, and the people 
were greatly moved by his discourse. 

He knew the natives well, the terrible scenes 
of the mutiny were fresh in his mind, and he fully 
entered into the significance of the time and place, 
and spoke with tremendous earnestness and 
power. His manner was very winning and pleas- 
ing. I have seen men approach us full of wrath, 
threatening our lives, when he would gently put 
his hand upon them and speak to them so gently 
and kindly, that they would quiet down and at 
length become fast friends. 

Joseph had been in the police during the mu- 
tiny. The Mission he was connected with was 
broken up, and he sought and obtained employ- 
ment under Government. When the outbreak 
was suppressed he applied to Dr. Butler, in Luck- 
now, for a place in our Mission as a native min- 
ister. He was gladly employed and sent to as- 
sist me in Bareilly. He was a noble man, and 
happily adapted to the place and time. I shall 
never forget him. I loved him as a brother. He 
watched over me with the greatest solicitude when 



TwENTY-ON^ Years in India. 107 

speaking in the Bazars. He always took his stand 
very close to me, and if any one approached, he 
was sure to place himself between me and the 
person coming toward me. I think he feared I 
might be assassinated, and he would permit no 
one to come to me without first passing him. On 
this, our first attempt at preaching in the Bazar, 
we were treated respectfully and kindly. 

Several gathered about us for conversation, 
after our preaching was concluded. Some of 
them accompanied us some distance on our way 
home, asking us many questions, which we were 
glad to answer. 

It may be proper for me now to consider very 
briefly the subject of street preaching in India. 
The people spend much of the time in the open 
air. The temples are not for congregations to 
assemble in for worship, as with us, but for the 
gods and officiating priests. The people congre- 
gate outside. If there is anything for them, it 
is spoken to them out in the open air. So preach- 
ing in this way is perfectly in accord with their 
ideas and practices. 



io8 Twe:nty-one: Ydars in India. 

It is the only way we could get access to the 
people in those days. Much of what was said 
was only imperfectly understood, but something 
was lodged in the hearts of our hearers, and a 
little leaven is sufficient to leaven the whole lump. 
I am strongly in favor of street preaching in 
India. I am just as much in favor of schools 
for the young, and anything that will enable us 
to reach the people with the Gospel. In our mis- 
sion we have never had any special variance as to 
methods, but have been ready to use any means 
that promised the most good. Public preaching 
in the Bazars needs to be conducted with discre- 
tion and tact. Many persons are inclined to raise 
questions to test the skill or knowledge of the 
speaker; many are very fond of argument, but, 
as a rule, it is not best to argue very much. If 
3^ou engage in an argument they will almost in- 
variably claim to have the best of it; it is better 
to ask them to call upon you at your residence, 
when you can talk with them to much better ad- 
vantage. Questions that are evidently sincere 
may be answered in a few words. A kind, gentk 



Twenty-one: Ykars in India. 109 

manner helps one very much. Impatience, or 
petulance, must not in any case be shown, how- 
ever provoking they may be. There is not, per- 
haps, as much Bazar preaching now as in former 
years, but that it is a powerful means for the 
spread of Gospel truth there can be no doubt. 
We continued to preach at some point in the city 
nearly every evening. At one time we were in- 
vited to preach in front of the Kotwali, police 
headquarters. We found a carpet spread and 
chairs set out for us. After the service, the head 
officer accompanied me some distance on the way 
to our home ; he asked me if, in our preaching, we 
could not avoid using the name of our Lord, as 
the mere mention of His name was an offense to 
the Mohammedans? He was himself a Moham- 
medan, and a native of Constantinople. I replied, 
"Suppose you were to suppress the name of the 
magistrate when he gives you an order for the 
people of the city, because the badmashes, crim- 
inal classes, dislike him, what would he do?" "O !" 
said he, "he would punish me, of course;" then 
added, "I see how it is you can not do as I have 



no Twenty-one: Years in India. 

asked you." He added : "I would like to help you." 
I replied, "All we ask is, if the people should use 
violence towards us, you should protect us just 
as you would anybody else, so long as we are 
within our rights. Otherwise, it would be better 
not to notice us. If the police were to notice us 
particularly, the people would think that the Gov- 
ernment had sent us." 

As we were preaching one evening in this 
densely crowded place, the Chauk, my attention 
was attracted to a young man standing near by 
who seemed deeply interested in what was being 
said. At the close of our preaching I sought him 
out and spoke with him. I asked him if he had 
ever heard the preaching before? He replied, 
that he had not until on some former occasion 
he heard us in some other part of the city. I 
asked him what he thought of it all ; if he thought 
it to be the truth, and was interested in it? He 
replied that he greatly desired to know more 
about what he had heard. I asked him to go 
home with us, which he did, and we spent a long 
time in conversation with him. We learned that 



Twe:nty-onk Years in India. hi 

he belonged to a sect of Mohammedans called 
"Purannamis," who claim to be seekers after 
truth; that he had practiced a great variety of 
austerities in hope of finding rest for his soul, but 
all to no avail. 

We very earnestly prayed that God would 
give us this young man. He came to all our 
services at the Mission House, and was often at 
our preaching in the Bazars of the city. His in- 
terest seemed constantly to deepen, and we were 
more and more interested in him. We became 
fully satisfied that he was a true seeker after the 
salvation of his soul. In a few months, one Sun- 
day, he very earnestly requested baptism, and 
was very desirous to have it administered to him 
on that very day. I was very anxious to have 
him fully understand the importance of the step 
he was about to take. I explained to him that 
he must expect persecution, and be ready to suf- 
fer the loss of all things, even life itself, if neces- 
sary, for Christ's sake; I found that he seemed 
to have considered it in all of its phases, and we 
could not doubt his sincerity. So I told him to 



113 Tw^nTy-one: Yi:ars in India. 

wait until the next Sunday, and if he were of the 
same mind then, I would baptize him. It be- 
came known very soon that he was to be baptized 
on the next Sunday, and his Mohammedan 
friends were immediately up in arms, and resorted 
to every means in their power to prevent it. They 
offered him money and lucrative service on the 
one hand, and threatened ostracism and persecu- 
tion on the other, but neither moved him from 
his purpose publicly to acknowledge Christ as his 
Lord and Master. The next Sunday evening, 
July 24, 1859, I baptized this young man, whose 
name was Zhur-ul-Haqq, who became a most use- 
ful native minister, and our first native presiding 
elder. I shall have occasion to speak more fully 
of him as to this part of his life in the next 
chapter. 

I will now proceed to consider the question 
recently raised^ Was Zhur-ul-Haqq the first con- 
vert baptized in our Mission in India? I think, 
beyond any doubt whatever, that he was, and my 
reasons for this opinion are as follows: At the 
time this question was raised in India, it was said 




REV. ZAHUR UL HAQQ. 
First Native Convert, and Presiding Elder of the Methodist Church Mission.) 



Twenty-one Years in India. 113 

that probably Maria, the young woman of whom 
Dr. Butler speaks in his book, ''The Land of the 
Veda," who was killed on the 31st of May, 1857, 
by the sepoys in his compound, was the first bap- 
tism. She did probably join our Church ; she was 
a member of Dr. Butler's class, conducted by him 
during the weeks of his residence in Bareilly, be- 
tween January and the middle of May, when he 
left for Naini Tal. But it does not seem proba- 
ble that he baptized her ; had he done so, he would 
have been likely to mention it. I have heard him 
on different occasions speak of Zhur-ul-Haqq as 
our first baptism. He made the same statement 
again and again, in published articles in differ- 
ent periodicals. I think there can be no doubt as 
to his view of this subject. I have recently re- 
ceived a letter from Mrs. Butler, who says that 
Dr. Butler did not baptize Maria, and that he al- 
ways said that Zhur-ul-Haqq was our first bap- 
tism. Bishop Thoburn says in his book, "India 
and Malaysia," page 266: "The word Mazhib 
means religion, and the term Mazhabi is simply 

an adjective form, the whole meaning that these 
8 



i:i4 TwKNTY-ON^ Years in India. 

people are Sikhs by religion, if not by race. They 
themselves began coming to the missionaries at 
Moradabad, and a few of them were baptized 
early in 1859, or possibly even before the close 
of 1858." 

I was on the ground and know what trans- 
pired more fully than any person now living. 
These people first came to our notice in January 
of 1859, so none of them could have been bap- 
tized in 1858. I spent the most of January and 
February of that year in Moradabad. A deputa- 
tion came in to Mr. Parsons a week or so before 
I arrived ; I know he did not baptize any of them, 
for he was not ordained. Later, when he desired 
to baptize some of them, Dr. Butler desired me 
to go over to Moradabad from Bareilly and bap- 
tize them, if I thought best, as he had told Mr. 
Parsons that it would be contrary to the rules of 
the Church for him, being unordained, to admin- 
ister the ordinance. I personally know that none 
of these people had been baptized prior to my 
visit to Moradabad in May, when I went at Dr. 
Butler's request. I thought it best to defer their 



Twenty-one Years in India. 115 

baptism, and so returned to Bareilly without hav- 
ing baptized any of them. 

It is certain that none of the Sikhs were bap- 
tized before July the 24th, of 1859, the date of 
Zhur-ul-Haqq's baptism. I think, therefore, that 
it is a fact, beyond all reasonable doubt, that his 
was our first baptism. It may not be a matter of 
any very great importance, but as an item of his- 
tory it is desirable to know the facts in the case. 
After Zhur-ul-Haqq's baptism, I baptized sev- 
eral of these Sikhs, I should think as many as 
fifteen or twenty. Among them were two young 
men, brothers. Main Phul and Gurdial Sing, in 
whom we became much interested from the first. 
They came to us from their village, and asked us 
to give them some work so that they could earn 
enough to get their bread, and at the same time 
learn to read. They were very simple-minded, 
evidently sincere, honest, and much in earnest. 
Main Phul remained with me for some time, and 
at length became a teacher, and was sent to labor 
among his own people, where he became very 
useful. 



Ii6 Twe:nty-one; Yi:ars in India. 

Gurdial went with Brother Parker, and was 
very useful to him in Bijnour and Moradabad. 
They are both dead, as, in fact, most of those 
who became Christians in the first years of our 
Mission, are. Soon after his baptism. Main Phul 
asked permission to bring his wife from their vil- 
lage, who was very wild and unmanageable at first, 
but she improved rapidly under the care of the 
ladies of the Mission, and in time she became use- 
ful as a teacher among the women in the villages. 
She died young, but in her dying moments she 
remembered the ladies Vv^ho had so patiently and 
lovingly taught her when so very ignorant, and 
among her last words were messages of love to 
them. 



CHAPTER VII. 

First Arrivals from Home, and Opening Work 

in Budaon. 

Th^ baptism of Zhur-ul-Haqq naturally pro- 
duced a deep impression and created a good deal 
of excitement in the city, especially among Mo- 
hammedans. We often received calls from them, 
evidently largely from motives of curiosity, when 
many questions, like the following, were asked : 
"Do you require those who become Christians to 
eat pork and drink wine?" Then they were quite 
sure to ask the following: "You say Jesus Christ 
is the Son of God; has God a wife?" 

One Sunday a party of Mohammedans were 
present in our service. Joseph Fieldbrave was 
preaching, when an unusual influence came upon 
us ; it was a kind of a thrill, almost like an elec- 
tric shock, when one, with a cry, rushed from the 
room, the others following in hot haste. They 

117 



ii8 Twenty-one: Years in India 

evidently feared that some influence might come 
upon them that would make them Christians. 1 
can not explain what it was that we felt at that 
time. Only on a few occasions in my life have I 
felt anything like it. I recall an occasion in our 
Enghsh service in Naini Tal, when a thrill seemed 
to pass through the congregation, and a singular 
feeling of awe seemed to rest upon us all. I 
can not account for this certainly unusual phe- 
nomenon on natural principles. Aly feeling was 
at the time that it was the Holy Spirit, and I see 
no reason now to think otherwise. 

The conversion of Zhur-ul-Haqq was a very 
happy and inspiring event to us ; it seemed given 
to us at that time to encourage us in our work, 
and it seemed an assurance that we might expect 
immediate fruit. Zhur-ul-Haqq was a very gen- 
tle and unassuming young man, and not at all in- 
clined to put himself forward. The natives of 
India are, as a rule, good talkers, graceful in their 
movements and gestures, and many have consid- 
erable natural ability for public address. They 
are, as a rule, fond of discussion, and never seem 



Twenty-one Years in India. 119 

to tire of hair-splitting and speculation. I said to 
some Pundits who were teaching in some of our 
schools, "I am going to a certain Mela next 
week." They replied, ''Let us go with you." I an- 
swered, "I am going to preach, and if you go 
with me perhaps you will assist me." They re- 
plied, ''We will, if you order us to do so." I said, 
"Certainly not, until you find Christ and love 
Him." 

Zhur-ul-Haqq seemed reticent and diffident, 
and I did not like to ask him to speak in a public 
place in Bareilly, as there was a good deal of ex- 
citement in the city over his baptism; and yet I 
was most anxious to have him make a beginning, 
for I felt sure God designed that he should be a 
preacher. I had occasion to visit Shahjehanpore, 
between forty or fifty miles distant. I resolved 
to take him with me and have him speak in some 
of the villages on the way. I thought it would 
be less trying for him to begin in this way than 
in the city where he was well known. It so hap- 
pened that the first place where it became con- 
venient for us to preach was Tilhur, and upon ar- 



120 TwENTY-oNi: Years in India. 

riving there I noticed it was Bazar day; that is, 
a day in the week when all who buy and sell con- 
gregate for trade. So there was a great crowd of 
people assembled from the country round about. 
To my astonishment, I learned that this was 
Zhur-ul-Haqq's native place. Being well known 
here, and his family being one of prominence, 
the excitement over his having become a Christian 
was greater here than in Bareilly even. He told 
me that a few days before he had come to visit 
his family, but they denounced him, and he barely 
escaped with his life. I concluded it was not de- 
signed that the cross should be lightened for him, 
so after preaching myself, I encouraged him to 
tell the people how he came to become a Christian. 
He began by relating the story of his early life 
among them; told them how much he had suf- 
fered in hope of finding rest for his mind. Then 
he told them of his hearing the preaching in the 
Bazar in Bareilly, and how he had come to know 
Christ as his Savior from his sins, and what peace 
and comfort he now enjoyed. He invited them 
to accept Christ, as He is the only one who can 



Twe:nty-on^ Ydars in India. 121 

forgive sin and take it away from the heart and 
give rest and peace. He assured them that if 
they would beHeve in Him He would save them 
also, and they would not need to go on pilgrim- 
ages to Mecca, or to Kedarnath or Badrinath, but 
He would come into their hearts and make them 
good and happy. It was a beautiful testimony, 
simply and appropriately told. I felt no more 
fears about his future as a preacher of the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ. For thirty-eight years he lived 
a bright example of the power of grace to save, 
and preached the Gospel of his blessed Lord 
through all that long period with patience, tact, 
and love. We have had none among our native 
ministers more useful, loved, and honored by all 
he came in contact with, not only among Chris- 
tians, but among all classes of the native com- 
munity. 

Our first annual meeting was held in Septem- 
ber of this year — that is, 1859 — in Lucknow. We 
had made a beginning in Naini Tal, Moradabad, 
Bareilly, and Lucknow. We were cheered by 
the prospect of receiving large re-enforcements 



122 TwEJNTY-ONK YeJARS IN InDIA. 

from home, and also by the fact that it would not 
be with them as it had been with us ; they would 
find homes in readiness and work prepared for 
them. They need not wait, or be in any doubt as 
to where their work might be. That annual 
meeting was indeed a memorable one. The fear- 
ful storm that had swept over the land, in the 
terrible mutiny of the native army, had gone by ; 
the morning of a new and brighter day had 
dawned for India. Our great work was opening 
full of promise. We were all young, full of hope 
and inspiration, having only one aim, to preach 
Christ and lead the people to Him. 

The brethren who came at this time were Mr. 
and Mrs. Downey, Mr. and Mrs. Waugh, Mr. and 
Mrs. Parker, Mr. and Mrs. Judd, and Mr. Tho- 
burn, now Bishop Thoburn. Mr. and Mrs. Baume 
had arrived a short time before. This was a nota- 
ble company. Bishop Thoburn, Mrs. Parker, and 
Dr. Waugh are all that are still living. All the 
others have passed to their reward on high. 
Bishop Parker was the last to go, after a long 
career of very great usefulness. He had about 



Twenty-one Years in India. 123 

forty-three years of distinguished service in the 
Mission. Mrs. Parker is still doing heroic work 
in the field. Dr. Waugh retired after thirty-five 
years of faithful and effective service. 

Bishop Thoburn is still in the effective ranks, 
and is well known through our whole Church, 
and is everywhere honored and revered as a model 
Missionary Bishop. One of that party, Brother 
Downey, passed away in a few days after the 
close of our session. T was returned to Bareilly, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Downey were to have been our 
colleagues. Brother Downey seemed to us, as 
we met him in our sessions, a very charming 
young man, and we anticipated great pleasure in 
having him with us as our fellow-worker in the 
great field we saw opening before us in Bareilly. 
His death was a great sorrow to us. In a few 
weeks, Mrs. Downey came to live with us and 
to take the work planned for her husband, as far 
as she could do it. 

She was a very lovely character, highly ac- 
complished, and wholly consecrated to the work. 
Afterward she became the wife of Mr. Thoburn, 



1^4 Twi^NTY-ONi: Years in India. 

then of Naini Tal, and died about a year or a 
little more afterward. Her career in the mission 
work she loved with all her heart was brief, but 
she left an influence behind her that has been felt 
by many hearts along down the years that have 
intervened. We were just beginning our boys' 
orphanage, and she was placed in charge of it. 

Towards the end of December, Mrs. Hum- 
phrey and myself took our camp equipage, which 
consisted of two excellent tents, with utensils for 
our housekeeping, and set out on an itinerating 
tour with a view to visiting the city of Budaon, 
the center of a large district of that name, lying 
between Bareilly and the Ganges, to the south. 
On our way we visited and preached in several 
towns, where we now have large Christian com- 
munities, but where we did not find any who had 
heard the name of our Lord even at that time. 
Crowds listened to our preaching and seemed in- 
terested ; but O ! how dense the darkness that en- 
shrouds their minds! It seems depressing, and 
even appalling, at times, as we come in close con- 
tact with the people. Arriving at Budaon, we 



Twe:nty-on£: Ye:ars in India. 125 

were most warmly welcomed by a few native 
Christians who had survived the mutiny, and the 
English magistrate of the district. All earnestly 
urged our opening work in Budaon at once. The 
opportunity to purchase an unfinished house and 
compound in an excellent location, on very favor- 
able terms, seemed to me an indication that we 
should not fail to improve our opportunity with- 
out delay. The lieutenant-governor of the North- 
west Provinces, with his camp, arrived in time 
to spend Christmas there. I wrote to Dr. Butler, 
explaining the situation to him, and urged him 
to come over and spend a few days with me, 
which he did very gladly. The Nawab of Ram- 
pore came also with an immense retinue to visit 
the Governor. For a few days matters were very 
lively and gay. The Governor's camp was a very 
canvas city. India is a great country for camp 
life, and all officials from the Governor-General 
down, if possible, spend a considerable part of 
the cold season in camp. We have the best tents, 
I imagine, in the world. The camp of the Gov- 
erttor is a beautiful sight. The fine large tents 



126 TwiSNTY-ONK Years in India. 

are pitched in order, with streets running through 
between them. On Christmas day we had serv- 
ice in the Governor's magnificent Durbar tent. 
The Governor, and all his secretaries and offi- 
cers, with all the residents of the station, were 
present, making a congregation of forty or fifty 
people. Dr. Butler preached an excellent sermon. 
In the evening we dined with the Governor in his 
spacious dining-tent. The Governor and several 
of his suite made handsome donations to our Mis- 
sion. The magistrate of Budaon gave us rupees 
500 to assist in beginning our work here. It 
was soon arranged that I should remove from 
Bareilly and open the work here. This neces- 
sitated the removal of Mr. Waugh to Bareilly to 
supply my place, and Mr. Baume from Lucknow 
to Shahjehanpore. 

While in Budaon our tent was entered by rob- 
bers in the night, and our trunks, with clothes, 
money, and books, were taken. Our native min- 
ister said, when I aroused the camp and called 
for help to catch the thieves, I said they had car- 
ried off my grammar and dictionary ; the loss of 



Twe:nty-one: Years in India. la/ 

these was more than anything else in the Hne of 
property just then. It costs a great effort to get 
the language, and I had bent all my energies in 
that direction. The grammar and dictionary 
were constant companions in those days. 

We returned to Bareilly and made over our 
charge to Mr. Waugh, and were soon back in 
Budaon, and very busy in laying the foundation 
for our work. We had much to do to get prop- 
erly housed, and the work in shape for the hot 
season, which would soon begin. Our first work 
was to render our residence habitable. It re- 
quired plastering, and proper floors were to be 
made; this occupied several weeks. 

In the meantime we looked about with the 
view to becoming acquainted with the district. 
It seems to be densely populated; the soil is gen- 
erally fertile, with good facilities for irrigation, 
either by temporary wells or streams. It is re- 
garded highly advantageous that all through this 
section of country water is not very distant from 
the surface; it can be reached in almost any 
locality by digging from ten to twenty-five feet. 



128 TWE^NTY-ON^ Y^ARS IN InDIA. 

There are two kinds of wells in use ; one is called 
a "pucka well," which is substantially made, well 
bricked up in the inside ; the other is known as a 
"kutcha well," which is simply dug down to water 
Avithout any bricking up, and the water is drawn 
by hand, or by bullocks, to irrigate the field. It 
is a very important matter to be able to get water 
without much expense for this purpose; it makes 
a good crop quite certain, even if the rains are 
slight. These words, pucka and kutcha, are very 
significant, and very largely used. Pucka is ap- 
plied to anything substantial and permanent, or 
to be relied upon; kutcha is applied to anything 
not substantial. A pucka house is one well built ; 
a pucka man is one that can be relied upon. A 
kutcha house is one that is not substantially built ; 
a kutcha man is one that you can not trust. The 
district contains several cities of some size, of 
which Budaon itself is the chief, and contains a 
population of about thirty thousand, and is the 
official center of the district, which contains nearly 
a million of people. The European portion has 
excellently paved roads, with some very comfort- 



TwKnTy-onk Yi:ars in India. 129 

able residences, with large and attractive gardens 
attached. The Government buildings are sub- 
stantial and well adapted to the needs of the Gov- 
ernment. We found eight or ten European fami- 
lies living here. 

I was expected to hold a service in English 
for these on Sunday. The native population I 
found to be divided between Hindus and Moham- 
medans, in the ratio of about three of the former 
to one of the latter. In the rural portions they 
are mostly Hindus, divided into the usual castes. 
Our first object was to complete our partially 
built house, and get ready for the approaching 
hot weather. In the meantime we began our 
work. We regarded our first work to be preach- 
ing the Gospel directly to the people in their own 
language. Then secondary to this, we opened 
schools for both sexes, as far as our means would 
permit. Nothing could be more firmly settled in 
my mind than that our first great business was 
to go to the people everywhere, carrying to them 
the Gospel message. We sought out convenient 
places where we could gather the people and 
9 



130 TwKnty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

preach to them. A day when we had not held such 
a service seemed to me in a measure lost. 

Before the hot weather fully set in, I made a 
tour to Futtigarh, about sixty miles to the south 
of us. This was an old Mission station of the 
Presbyterian Board, situated on the south side of 
the Ganges. Four Mission families living there, 
when the mutiny broke out, fell victims to Nana 
Sahib and his followers, and were put to death 
on the parade ground in Cawnpore, I met Messrs. 
Scott and Fullerton, missionaries residing there, 
and spent two or three delightful days with them 
looking over their fine large school and their 
Christian community. They took me to the spot 
where the head master of the school was tied to 
the muzzle of a cannon, and told to renounce 
Christ and he would be spared; but he refused, 
the torch was applied, and he was blown to atoms, 
rather than deny his Lord and Savior. They had 
a large industrial establishment, conducted by na- 
tive Christians, devoted to the manufacture of a 
very superior style of tents, that interested me 
very much. I thought it quite certain that we 



Twi:nty-one: Y^ars in India. 131 

would wish to inaugurate something of this kind 
in the near future, with the purpose of furnishing 
employment to native Christians. Such enter- 
prises seem very necessary in India; they have 
seemed so from the very beginning of our work, 
and they seem so still, and perhaps never more so 
than now ; but for some reason we in our Mission 
have never seemed to prosper very well with en- 
terprises of this nature. Perhaps they may be 
more successfully conducted now than in the past. 
There is much need of enterprises of this kind on 
account of the greater number of children that 
have come into our care on account of the famines 
that have prevailed late years. I would say in 
this connection that Mr. Blackstock, and others in 
charge of our orphanage for boys at Shahjehan- 
pore, have succeeded in enterprises of this kind to 
a very good degree. Outside our orphanages, or 
similar institutions, I do not think we can claim 
very marked success. I learned many things from 
my visit to these brethren in Futtigarh that was of 
great use to me in after years. I also secured the 
services of a very valuable native preacher, Enoch 



132 Twe:nTy-onij Ykars in India. 

Burge, with whom I was intimately associated for 
many years in one way and another. 

Just before the hot season set in, I took a hasty 
tour out into the western part of the district, vis- 
iting some of the more important towns in that 
direction. In one place, after preaching, among 
many others who came to our tent for tracts, was 
a very bright lad of fifteen or sixteen years of 
age, who, I found, could read well, and knew 
something of arithmetic. He was a very inter- 
esting young man, and from the first I felt my 
heart much drawn out toward him. In a few 
days after my return to Budaon he came to see 
me, and it so happened that we desired a teacher 
for a low caste school among a class of people 
who seemed much interested on the subject of 
religion. It occurred to me that he might do for 
this school, until we could get an older person. 
I found he was quite as old as I was when I taught 
my first school, so I placed him in charge of the 
school. He soon became a Christian, and in time 
a member of Conference. A few years ago we 
used often to see his name appended to hymns of 



Twen'Ty-one Years in India. 133 

his own composition in our vernacular papers, so 
that he came to be known as the poet of the Mis- 
sion. He is now a member of the Northwxst In- 
dia Conference. The little school he taught 
proved the beginning of a great work among the 
people of that class for whom it was begun. As 
the years have gone by several thousands of them 
have become Christians. 

During my residence here I built a neat, com- 
modious chapel, which served tis well for both 
Hindustani and English services on Sunday, and 
for a boys' school during the week. 

Our policy has been to have one superior 
school at our mission center where we reside. 
In this are taught the higher branches, both ver- 
nacular and English. Then we have as many 
primary schools out in the villages as seem to be 
demanded and as we can support. As we have 
native Christians out in the villages, it is abso- 
lutely necessary to provide schools for them. 
Here the foundation of their education is laid. 
Those among the children that seem especially 
bright and promising we arrange to take into our 



134 Tw^NTY-oN^ Yejars in India. 

central school, so that they can pursue a more 
advanced course of study. Then we have Reid 
Christian College for Boys, and Miss Thoburn's 
College for Girls. We have a splendid system 
arranged for the education of the boys and girls 
of the native Church. 

What is now lacking is the endowment of 
these higher institutions. Let them be put upon 
a proper financial footing and a great future is 
before them. 

In November, Mr. Knowles and Joseph I^ield- 
brave came over from Bareilly, and Enoch Burge 
and myself joined them, and we went to the great 
Mela on the Ganges, held at this season of the 
year. 

This festival is called ''The Puran Massee." 
The people come together from a great distance, 
and spend from ten days to a fortnight on the 
banks of the river, bathing in its waters, listen- 
ing to the Brahmins as they recite from the Shas- 
ters, and watching whatever may be going on. 
It is a time of recreation generally, and the women 
who go to this gathering are much less particu- 



TwEN'TY-ONK Yi:aRS in InDIA. I35 

lar to keep themselves secluded than they gen- 
erally are. In many instances they bring the ashes 
of members of the family who have died during 
the year and cast them into the Ganges. In the 
evening the river is covered over with little lights 
set out on the water to light the spirits of those 
who have gone from them on their journey to 
their uncertain future. One of our missionaries 
said to an old man on one occasion, ''What do you 
put these lights out on the water for ?" He looked 
off into the deepening twilight and replied, ''O 
sir, it is very dark over there!" It is so, indeed, 
to them. This is a good time for preaching ; they 
have leisure, and usually are glad to listen. I 
have found people in far-away places who, to my 
surprise, said they had heard the story of Christ 
at this Mela many hundred miles away. At the 
close of an address one day, as I stepped down 
from the place on which I was standing, a very 
venerable man of high caste fell down at my feet 
and clasped them and said, "I am so glad I have 
lived to see this day and hear such gracious 
words." I never saw him again, but he seemed 



136" Twe:nty-on:^ Ye:ars in India. 

sincere and intensely earnest, walking in all the 
light he had received. I believe there are such 
men among the heathen, and when they hear the 
Gospel they are almost sure to embrace it. I can 
but think that this aged man was prepared by 
the Lord for the reception of the Gospel message, 
and I hope to meet him among the shining ones in 
heaven some day. 

The veneration of the people of India for the 
Ganges is very great ; it is the most sacred, in their 
estimation, of all the rivers of the country. The 
Ramayan, the great epic of the Hindus, contains 
this account of Gunga's birth : 

Ram made request of a certain holy man : 

" ' O Saint, I yearn 
The three pathed Gunga's tale to learn.' 
The saint, thus urged, recounted both 
The birth of Gunga and her growth. 
* The mighty hill by metals stored, 
Himalaya, is the mountain's lord, — 
The father of a lovely pair 
Of daughters, fairest of the fair. 
Their mother, offspring of the will 
Of Meru, everlasting hill ; 
Mena, Himalaya's darling, graced 
With beauty of her dainty waist ; 
Gunga was elder born ; then came 
The fair one known by Uma's name ; 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 137 

Then all the gods in heaven, in need 

Of Gunga's help their vows to speed, 

To great Himalaya came, and prayed 

The mountain king to yield the maid. 

He, not regardless of the weal 

Of three worlds, with holy zeal 

His daughter to the immortals gave, — 

Gunga, whose waters cleanse and save, 

Who roams at pleasure, fair and free. 

Purging all sinners, to the sea. 

The three pathed Gunga thus obtained, 

The gods their heavenly homes regained.' " 

Gunga Ji, the honorable Ganges, is greatly 
loved and enthusiastically worshiped by the 
Hindus. Aged and sick people are often taken 
to its banks and left there to die. It is regarded 
very meritorious to pass from earth with its 
waters in view. 

For weeks after this great gathering on the 
Ganges, great numbers of men may be seen car- 
rying on their shoulders two baskets, one attached 
to each end of a pole, filled with bottles of water 
from the river, which is carried hundreds of miles, 
and is kept in the homes of the better class of 
people and used on occasion of ceremony, sick- 
ness, and death. It is regarded especially sacred. 

The following lines express something of esti- 



138 Twi:nty-one: Yi:ARS in India. 

mate the Hindus put upon the value of the water 
of the holy Mata Gunga : 

" The jewels of Puna are costly and rare, 
The silks of Amritsar are matchlessly fair ; 
But the waters of Gunga in beauty outvie 
All the gems of the earth, all the stars of the sky. 

Her fountains are pure as the snows of Kedar, 
And her stream, as it flows, no foulness can mar ; 
But where Kashi's high temples eternally shine, 
Each wave is a god, and each drop is divine." 

A Striking scene occurred near Hurdwar, 
where the Ganges issues from the Himalayas, 
April the 8th, 1854. The Government had for 
several years been reopening old canals that had 
been made by the Moguls, but had fallen into de- 
cay. They were for irrigation only, and were 
found to be so very useful that they built a very 
fine, large one through the Doab"^ to receive water 
from the Ganges; hoping thus to avert the dis- 
astrous famines to which that region is subject. 

The Ganges Canal was a vast work, but it was 
at last completed and about to be formally opened. 
The Hindus all around were greatly excited. 
They could not believe that the mighty goddess — 

=■'• I,and lying between the two rivers, the Ganges and Jumna. 



Twe:nTy-on^ Years in India. 139 

the Mata Gunga — Mother Ganges — would allow 
any portion of her sacred waters to flow in this 
channel made by the hated Faringhis. The 
priests assured the people that Gunga Ji would 
utterly refuse to flow in this alien channel. She 
would not obey the English! More than a half 
million of people waited that day on the banks 
of the sacred river so dear to their hearts, anx- 
iously watching the issue. 

The deep wide channel of the canal stretched 
straight out into the distance. The great Ganges 
rolled majestically on its way towards the south- 
ern sea. A group of English officials and engi- 
neers stood at a point of contact between the two. 
No doubts or fears disturbed their minds in re- 
gard to what the Ganges might do. They might 
have feared an uproar among the people, but they 
had to risk that. At a signal given, the obstruc- 
tions were removed, and lo! part of the noble 
stream flowed into the canal and rolled peace- 
fully onward toward the horizon ! 

Amazement and anguish transfixed the people 
for a while! "Would the English indeed subdue 



140 Twe:nty-one: Yejars in India. 

their gods as well as themselves ?" They strained 
their eyes, then turned to tell the breathless crowd 
to reproach the priests. They waited until it was 
fully evident that Gunga Ji had really yielded to 
the command of the English; then one terrible 
despairing groan burst from their lips, and with 
bowed heads and sinking hearts they slowly dis- 
persed. 

The year was drawing to a close. It had been 
a memorable one to us. We had greatly enjoyed 
our work, and there had been a very encouraging 
advance made in every department of it. 

A good foundation had been laid, and the 
way was now clear and nothing remained but to 
go forward and push the work at every point. 
It had been a year of trial as well. God gave us a 
little one, who was soon taken from us, and my 
dear wife had been brought to the point of death, 
and for days we watched with intense anxiety. 

I can never forget the debt I owe to mission- 
ary friends, especially to the first Mrs. Waugh, 
who left her home in Bareilly and came, and was 
as an angel from heaven to us through all that 
time of great trial. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

Return to Bareilly and Removal to Shahjehan- 

pore. 

Our second Annual Meeting was held in the 
early part of January, 1861. During the latter 
part of i860, and up to the harvest in September 
and October, 1861, we suffered much through a 
considerable part of the Northwest from famine. 
We had a large addition to the numbers in our 
orphanages on account of it. A large sum of 
money was sent out from England to relieve the 
sufferings at the time. This was received and 
disbursed by the Government, and a portion of it 
was invested for the support of orphan children. 
Eor many years we drew on this fund a fixed 
sum for each child. At our Annual Meeting I 
was returned to Bareilly, and Mr. Knowles was 
sent to Budaon in my place. During the year 
Dr. Butler had moved from Lucknow to Bareilly. 

141 



142 Twe:nty-oni: Y:eARS in India. 

Cashmere Kotee was found to be very unsuitable 
for the prosecution of our work. It was isolated, 
far from the city and cantonments, and incon- 
venient for our work in many ways. I had urged 
a reconsideration of the question of location be- 
fore leaving Bareilly. After locating there, I very 
soon became convinced that it was not the place 
that we needed for our work; but it seemed the 
best we could do at the time. Dr. Butler con- 
curred with me, and determined to change our 
location as soon as a suitable place could be ob- 
tained. It was not long before an opportunity 
offered to get a site lying between cantonments 
on one side, and the city on the other. The posi- 
tion was excellent, being convenient for work both 
in the English part of the station and among the 
natives of the city. This place was immediately 
secured and building was begun. In course of 
the year, while I was in Budaon, two commodious 
Mission houses were completed, and Cashmere 
Kotee had been abandoned. This was every way 
a wise move. We have had all these years a fine 
location, with additions which have since been 



Twknty-one: Ykars in India. 143 

made, and the fine property given for the hospital 
under the charge of the Woman's Society, by the 
Nawab of Rampore adjoining, makes our Mis- 
sion premises very complete and valuable. One 
of the houses just completed was occupied by Dr. 
Butler, the other by Mr. Waugh. My first-work 
after arriving in Bareilly was to superintend the 
construction of a building for the boys' orphan- 
age, and then a residence for myself, which I saw 
completed ready for occupancy; but it was not 
my fortune to occupy it, as will be explained far- 
ther on. At this time the girls' orphanage was in 
Lucknow imder the charge of Mrs. Pierce. 
About two years later, after the death of Mrs. 
Pierce, it was removed to Bareilly, and the boys 
were removed to Shahjehanpore, where they have 
remained up to the present time. These institu- 
tions have served a highly useful purpose in our 
work. In addition to their humane character in 
rescuing suffering and starving children, they 
have furnished us many valuable helpers, both 
male and female. Some of our most able minis- 
ters in our Conference at the present time were 



144 Twenty-one Years in India. 

reared in our orphanage. Dr. Butler made large 
plans for these orphanages and expected large 
things from them. Perhaps not all has been real- 
ized that he hoped for; but enough has been 
gained fully to justify the wisdom of his plans. 
They have served a grand purpose, and bid fair to 
continue to do so for a long time to come. 

Our publishing interests began to take shape 
about this time, and a beginning was made. A 
room was built in connection with the orphanage 
building for the press, and work was begun under 
the direction of Rev. J. W. Waugh, who was a 
practical printer. It was in the plan to teach the 
older boys printing, and so make them useful, and 
give them a good trade at the same time. This 
room built for the press came down in the rains, 
which were especially heavy that year, and the 
place was flooded as I have never seen it since. 
Considerable damage was done to type and mate- 
rial collected by Mr. Waugh. From this humble 
beginning has grown our large publishing estab- 
lishments in Lucknow and Calcutta, which have 
done a great work in supplying our mission with 



TwijnTy-one: Years in India. 145 

its literature. We could not then, in our most 
sanguine moments, have imagined what we now 
see in this, as in nearly every other department 
of our great work. We soon began preaching on 
regular days, in all the most prominent points in 
the city. We arranged a regular weekly plan for 
nearly every day in the week except Sunday, in 
which work was laid out for every preacher and 
helper to do. We arranged a regular plan for 
visiting the larger villages about the city within 
a radius of five or six miles. This work was car- 
ried on with regularity and spirit, and it evidently 
made a very strong impression upon the people. 
Two years before I had seen the city powerfully 
moved on the occasion of the baptism of Zhur-ul- 
Haqq. This year I was permitted to see the peo- 
ple more generally and more deeply moved on the 
occasion of the baptism of a young Hindu gen- 
tleman belonging to a high caste family of im- 
portance in the city. When preaching on one oc- 
casion in one of the large Bazars of the city, I 
noticed several well-dressed young men among 
our hearers, standing on the outskirts of the 

10 



146 Twi:NTY-ONE: Y^ARS IN InDIA. 

crowd listening, when they could not have been 
induced to mix with them and come near to us. 
I was especially impressed witli one of their num- 
ber. I thought he was moved, and I was so deeply 
impressed that I made a great effort to get to 
him after we had finished our speaking. I fol- 
lowed him for a considerable distance in the 
crowded Bazar, often losing sight of him, and 
then catching a glimpse of him again. I finally 
came up with him and spoke to him. I think he 
was much surprised to be pursued in that way by 
me. I was not a little surprised myself that I 
should have done so, when I came to think about 
it. I merely acted on an impression without stop- 
ping to think. I have no doubt that the Spirit of 
God led me, as I think the outcome in this case 
shows. I asked him how what he had heard im- 
pressed him. He replied that he was much in- 
terested, and greatly desired to hear more. I in- 
vited him to come to our residence and we would 
be glad to explain these things to him more fully. 
He assured me that he would gladly come, which 



TwKNTY-ONi: YKARS in InDIA. 147 

he did in the course of a few days. These visits 
were continued for two or three months, during 
which time he attended our Hindustani services 
as steadily as he could. Then he requested me to 
baptize him. I deferred it for a time, as I fore- 
saw that he would have to meet very bitter per- 
secution. He said his wife desired to be baptized 
with him, and it was arranged that on a certain 
day they should come to the Mission for that pur- 
pose. On the day appointed he arrived, though 
much past the hour agreed upon, but he was alone, 
and with clothes soiled and torn, and bleeding 
from blows that had been inflicted upon him by 
members of his wife's family. They had taken 
his wife from him, carried her back to their home 
in the city; in the struggle he succeeded in slip- 
ping out of their hands and fled to us for protec- 
tion. The next day. Rajah Baijnath, a Hindu 
gentleman, called, who was greatly honored by 
the English for his stanch loyalty in the time of 
the mutiny, and for the aid he had given to Eng- 
lish gentlemen and ladies in those dark days, en- 



148 Twe:nty-oni: Y^ars in India. 

abling them to escape. He was a wealthy banker ; 
Government had conferred the title Rajah, which 
was equivalent to that of prince, upon him for his 
great devotion to Europeans and to the Govern- 
ment. He asked that he might be permitted to 
take this young man home with him for one night. 
He assured me that he would be responsible for 
his safety, but assured me that they would do all 
they could to turn him from his insane purpose 
to become a Christian. The whole city was up in 
arms. Before, it was a Mohammedan that proposed 
to become a Christian; now it was a Brahmin; 
and both Hindus and Mohammedans were in- 
tensely excited. This young man consented to go 
to the city for the night; he well knew that it 
would be a night of fierce trial to him. He re- 
quested that we would all pray for him. There 
was not much sleep among the native Christians 
that were with us that night. The next day he 
was returned to us victorious. He said they ar- 
gued and threatened by turns, and offered him 
large sums of money, and exhausted every device 



Tw^NTY-ON^ YEJARS IN InDIA. I49 

to lead him to abandon his purpose to become a 
Christian, but to no avail. Their chagrin was 
very great and their rage knew no bounds. There 
were many men armed with lathis — heavy sticks 
with lead run about the end, making them a very 
dangerous weapon — on the roads about our 
premises, evidently ready for mischief, but the 
Lord restrained them from acts of violence. The 
next evening he was baptized by Dr. Butler, who 
happened to be with us just at that time, and by 
my request officiated. A day or two afterward, 
Ambica Churn's father-in-law called early in the 
morning to see him. Not dreaming of violence, 
I left them for a few moments, when I heard a 
heavy blow and a fall. I rushed out, when Am- 
bica was rising from the floor, and blood was 
flowing from his head, while his father-in-law was 
fleeing like a madman from the compound. I 
noticed that he had a short lathi in his hands, 
which he was using as a walking stick, and I 
thought nothing of it. Natives often carry them 
in that way. I was told that after some angry 



150 Tw^NTY-ON^ Y^ARS IN InDIA. 

words he arose, as if to leave, when he turned 
and dealt Ambica a murderous blow, saying as he 
did so, "I am ready to be hanged for you," show- 
ing that murder was in his heart, but fortunately 
he was not very seriously hurt. The man being 
a somewhat prominent man in the place, as he 
was our postmaster, I thought it should not be 
allowed to pass unnoticed, so I made complaint 
in one of our courts, and he was put under bonds 
to keep the peace, and fined the sum of rupees 50, 
which was a small punishment for the crime com- 
mitted; but perhaps it was sufficient to serve the 
purpose of a deterrent^ and that was all we de- 
sired. 

In the early history of our work we had two 
converts from the better classes — one a Moham- 
medan, the other a high caste Hindu — and these 
were the direct fruit of preaching in the Bazars 
to the people. It used to be said in those days 
that we never could reach any but the most ig- 
norant and the lowest among the people by our 
preaching. These cases seemed to me an assur- 
ance that we might hope to reach the highest, as 



TwKnty-one: Years in India. 151 

well as the lowest, in this way. It seemed an 
expression of God's approval of our methods, 

which were: 

1. The proclamation of the Gospel message 
in its simplicity and power directly to the people 
in their own language. 

2. We assumed that it was for all people, rich 
and poor, high or low, without aistinction. 

3. We expected results. 

These are essential principles, and lie at the 
foundation of all true success in the evangeliza- 
tion of the world. This, I believe, to be funda- 
mental in the Gospel economy. Of course there 
are many ways of preaching, many things that 
must be done, that are tributary to the 
one great end; but the tendency is for 
these to multiply and become absorbing. 
Care must be exercised to prevent this. 
There may be times when special attention must 
be given to special classes ; but still we must not 
lose sight of the fact that our mission is to all, 
we are to preach the Gospel to every creature. 



152 Twe:nty-oni: Ye:ars in India. 

Our work grew with great rapidity on every 
hand, and we were fully absorbed in it. Just at 
this time circumstances arose that seemed to make 
it necessary for me to remove from Bareilly to 
Shahjehanpore. At this early stage of our his- 
tory, when opening work in many different places, 
and laying the foundation of many different in- 
stitutions and departments of work, frequent 
changes were unavoidable. This experience fell 
to my lot in these early years of the Mission, as I 
was one of the first in the field and could better 
undertake new work in a new field than one more 
recently out from home could. This was to be 
regretted, as with a missionary everything de- 
pends upon personal influence, and that can not 
be acquired without time. We have never ob- 
served the time limit in India. I was soon settled 
in Shahjehanpore, where I found a great field 
and many open doors of usefulness. I found it 
necessary to make somic changes in the boys' 
school which had been opened on the Mission 
premises, and to enlarge its scope. I succeeded in 



TwEnTy-onk Ykars in India. 153 

obtaining a commodious building in the Bazar, 
and secured some capable teachers, and soon our 
attendance rose from about twenty to over one 
hundred. We carried on Bazar preaching regu- 
larly, as we had done in other places. In the 
course of the year several persons were baptized, 
and the work grew rapidly upon our hands. I 
made several tours of some distance into the coun- 
try. In course of one of them I visited Brother 
and Sister Parker, while engaged in their at- 
tempt to colonize the Sikhs on land in the Tari in 
Oudh. A Government official, who had had ex- 
perience in such attempts, told me that our effort 
would be disastrous, as it proved to be. Most of 
the people sent there died of fever. Brother and 
Sister Parker narrowly escaped with their lives. 
The only way the Tari can be settled is to crowd 
the people living on its borders farther on, little 
by little. People taken from a distance and 
placed in that region will almost certainly perish 
from fever during the rainy season. The malaria 
of that region is deadly to people not accustomed 



154 Twe:nty-on^ Yi:ars in India. 

to it. While on this tour, I took in Seetapore, 
and passed a few days with Brother and Sister 
Gracey, preaching- in a Mela held there at that 
time. While here I met a native doctor who had 
served in the native army under Government, but 
had now retired on his pension. I learned that 
he lived some distance away in the interior. He 
was a man of some importance and means, and 
seemed to be exerting a good influence on the 
people about him. I promised to visit him, which 
I did some months afterward. I thought his a 
very interesting case, and made an itinerating 
tour into the part of the country where he lived 
and spent a Sunday with him, and baptized sev- 
eral members of his family, among them his 
mother, a very aged woman. While here in Shah- 
jehanpore, I saw a man who had been carried 
away when a child by wolves and reared by them. 
T had heard of cases of this kind, but was very 
much in doubt about their validity. This person 
was found by a hunting party a short time before 
the mutiny. They came upon a pack of wolves. 



TwEnTy-on^ Years in India. 155 

and one of them proved to be this man. He must 
have been eighteen years of age at the time. He 
was twenty or more when I saw him. The gen- 
tleman of whom we rented our school building 
gave him an outbuilding in the compound in 
which he lived. He was scarcely more than an 
animal. He could not talk, and lived like an ani- 
mal; he knew enough to hold out his hand for 
bakshish, as even monkeys are often trained to 
do in India. I saw him often, and can vouch for 
the case as being true. I was greatly delighted 
to welcome Rev. D. W. Thomas and Mrs. 
Thomas from home this year. I had known both 
of them at home before their marriage. They 
were from the same section of country that I was, 
and it was indeed a great delight to meet them 
and to have them with me in Shahjehanpore. My 
wife was obliged to spend that season in the 
mountains, on account of illness, so that it was 
special pleasure to have somebody in the house 
with me. They were very much occupied in the 
study of the language, and were able to do but 



156 Twi^NTY-ONie Ye:ars in India. 

little in work at that time, and in September they 
were removed to Bareilly to assist Dr. Butler 
with his accounts. A little later, when we 
became better organized, Brother Thomas was 
made treasurer of the Mission, in which capacity 
he served the Mission very efficiently for many 
years. I must not fail to mention a special kind 
of work that I prosecuted in this place among 
the higher class people. I took special pains to 
make the acquaintance of the best families in the 
city, calling upon them in times of affliction. I 
often had opportunity to explain our belief to 
them at a time, and under circumstances, when 
the truth came home to them with unusual force. 
I think much might be done in reaching the 
higher classes, were they properly approached. I 
do not for one moment think we should neglect 
the lower classes for the higher, nor do I think 
we should pass by the higher for the lower; we 
are to go to all without distinction. All need the 
Gospel, as all are under condemnation, and the 
proclamation of pardon includes all. The year 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 157 

1862 is memorable in the history of our 
Mission. Three noble and devoted mission- 
ary ladies passed on to heaven that year; 
Mrs. Jackson died in Budaon about the 
middle of September, Mrs. Thoburn died in 
Naini Tal in October, and Mrs. Pierce in Luck- 
now in November. Circumstances now arose 
when it was thought necessary for us to remove 
to Moradabad ; this was done with many regrets. 
I found my attachment for the work in Shahje- 
hanpore had become very strong, especially for 
the school. Teachers and pupils manifested the 
deepest feeling over my leaving. It had cost me 
much anxious labor to get the school into the state 
it was then in, and I hoped for much from it. 

I rose soon after midnight, on the day we 
were to leave, hoping to have two or three hours 
of quiet to do some work that remained to be 
done, so that all might be in proper shape for my 
successor. Soon I heard a soft tap at my door, 
which proved to be one of the teachers of the 
school, who had come to me to talk with me about 



158 Twe:nty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

becoming a Christian. He seemed to be much 
moved, but evidently shrank from the cross he 
saw it involved. I gave such advice as I thought 
the case demanded, and prayed with him. I am 
not sure that I have ever seen him since. I have 
the greatest sympathy for young men situated as 
he was, convinced of the falsity of their own sys- 
tems, and yet so situated that to forsake them 
involves the loss of everything in this world, as 
it must seem to them. Great wisdom is needed to 
deal with such cases. Sometimes those who seem 
to feel the cross the heaviest will be very brave 
and patient in bearing it in the end. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Removal to Moradabad, and Furlough Home. 

Mr. Judd and Mr. Brown had been at Morad- 
abad; Mr. Judd was now sent to Lucknow, and 
Mr. Brown to relieve me at Shahjehanpore. Mr. 
Jackson was to have been associated with me at 
Moradabad, but he only remained a short time, 
as he found it necessary to return home with his 
motherless child. Then Mr. and Mrs. Parker 
came to fill the vacant place, but they only re- 
mained during the cold weather, and were con- 
stantly suffering from the fever they had con- 
tracted in the Tarai in Oudh. As soon as the hot 
season came on they were obliged to go to the 
mountains, and we were again left alone. In a 
few weeks Mr. and Mrs. Mansell came to us in 
their place, and remained during the year. They 
had but recently arrived in the country, and were 
chiefly occupied in the study of the language. I 

159 



i6o Twi:ni'y-on^ Years in India. 

found them very congenial associates, and we had 
a dehghtful time together, and the foundation was 
laid for a lifelong friendship. Dr. Mansell is 
still in the work, and has done splendid service in 
the cause of Christ in India in many departments 
of the service. 

Here, too, I found a boys' school conducted 
on the Mission premises. It was well organized 
for that time, with an attendance pf about thirty. 
Some of the boys in attendance were from the 
best families in the city. I saw at once that the 
school was one of great promise; that it would 
evidently prove a power for good if put on a 
proper basis. I also felt sure it might be greatly 
improved by a moderate increase of the expendi- 
ture, and that the additional funds needed might 
probably be secured from our English friends in 
the station. I laid the matter before a few of our 
residents, and they at once responded with all 
that was needed to make the advance. I then 
proceeded to remove the school to the city. It 
was reorganized, the staff of teachers strength- 
ened and improved, and, as a result, we soon had 



TWEJNTY-ONK YHARS IN InDIA. i6i 

a large increase in our attendance and in general 
interest in the school by the better class of people 
in the city. In a short time Brother Mansell was 
able to take charge of the school and relieve me 
of the care and responsibility of it. This was a 
great relief to me with all the other work upon 
my hands at that time. In our first class were 
about twenty bright, active 3^oung men from good 
families in the city, who were so far advanced in 
the study of the English language that they could 
understand it and speak it somewhat, so that 
Brother Mansell could teach them to advantage, 
and at the same time exercise a general superin- 
tendence over the whole school. This has long 
been one of our very best schools. In my time 
there was a site in a very central position that I 
longed to obtain, where we might erect a building 
which would serve both for the school and re- 
ligious services, but it was not available at that 
time. Years after. Brother Parker succeeded in 
obtaining it, and such a building as I had dreamed 
of, was built, and it has served a grand purpose 
for many years. This Moradabad high school has 
u 



i62 Twenty-one: Years in India. 

been exceedingly useful in affording more ad- 
vanced education to our boys out in the country, 
who have given promise of accomplishing some- 
thing in life. We have had from the beginning 
more native Christians scattered about over the 
country in the Moradabad district than in any 
other part of the country. Bishop Parker did 
much for this school for many years, raising its 
grade to that of a high school, educating up to 
what is known as "the entrance course," which is 
equivalent to entrance to college in this country. 

It is now proposed to make it a memorial of 
Bishop Parker, which is exceedingly appropriate, 
and it is much to be hoped that a sufficient sum 
may be secured to raise it above financial press- 
ure for a long time to come. 

About the middle of December, after my re- 
moval to Moradabad, Dr. Butler came to us, on 
his way to the Pan jab to attend a great missionary 
gathering in Lahore, which was designed to take 
in all the missionaries in Upper India. It was to 
begin on Christmas-day and continue through the 
week and close on New-Year's Day. He was very 



TwKNTY-ONi: Ye:aRS in InDIA. 163 

anxious to have me accompany him ; but I feh it 
would be impossible for me to meet the expenses 
of so long a journey, but my wife and Dr. Butler 
arranged it that I was to go. For a very small 
sum he agreed to meet all the expense of my go- 
ing. My wife insisted on paying this from a 
small sum that she had succeeded in laying by. 
She felt that it was an opportunity of a lifetime. 
I felt so, too, but frequent removals and sickness 
had reduced our finances to that extent that I felt 
it would not be prudent for me to do so. But at 
the importunity of both Dr. Butler and my wife 
I had to yield, and I have never felt to regret it. 
It was the great occasion of my life. Our journey 
took us by Meerut, Delhi, Amballa, Lodiana, 
Kapurthala, Julinder, and Amritsir, to Lahore. 
Many of the missionaries were out in the district, 
or on their way to the Conference to be held in 
Lahore, but we called at all the places named and 
saw a good deal of their work. We traveled by 
Gharee Dak ; it was a long journey of five or six 
hundred miles, and we had several nights of 
travel. Mr. Hauser joined us in Meerut, and as 



164 TwKNTY-ONi: Y^ARS IN InDIA. 

may be imagined, by those familiar with jour- 
neying in India in those days, before we had rail- 
ways, it was not a very easy thing for three of us 
to manage to pass the night in a Dak Gharee to- 
gether, but we managed it in some way, and suc- 
ceeded in getting all the enjoyment out of it we 
could. Dr. Butler was one of the very best of 
traveling companions. He was splendid at rough- 
ing it, versatile in expedients to make matters go 
on smoothly, and as he assumed all the responsi- 
bility of providing for me, I had a royal time. I 
shall never forget that journey. We had been 
together a good deal in arranging and opening our 
work, with all the anxiety and care it involved; 
now we were for the time freed from all that, 
and we felt drawn together as perhaps never be- 
fore. I shall never forget some of our conversa- 
tions during those long moonlight nights on that 
journey. I managed to get him to tell me much 
more of his earlv life than I had known before. 
I have often wished that some one who wields a 
ready pen might write and give us the story of 
his noble and useful life. I am glad to say that 



TwKNTY-ONi: Years in India. 165 

his gifted daughter, Miss Clementine Butler, who 
was born in India, has performed this service 
very efficiently and lovingly. The book will, I 
have no doubt, have a large sale and be widely 
circulated. 

As I look back over the past, I am more and 
more impressed by the importance and magnitude 
of the work he did in laying the foundation of 
our Mission in India. Mistakes were made, no 
doubt; it was hardly possible that it should be 
otherwise ; the marvel is that they were not more 
numerous than they actually were. His plans 
were large and generally well conceived, and 
through all the intervening years we have been 
reaping the benefit of them. I knew him as inti- 
mately as any one in the Mission, and I think 
there can be no question but that Dr. Butler was 
a remarkable man. He had unbounded energy 
and courage; but few men would have accom- 
plished what he did in India under the circum- 
stances that then existed. His memory will be 
cherished in India by many for a long time to 
come. He was a very able preacher. He preached 



i66 Tw^nTy-onk Yi:ars in India. 

a very memorable sermon on the Sunday inter- 
vening in course of the Conference. We were 
the guests of the Presbyterian missionaries dur- 
ing the session of the Conference. This Confer- 
ence was distinguished from all others I have at- 
tended in India, by the number of high officials 
who attended it^ and took a prominent part in 
its proceedings. Among these were Sir Herbert 
Edwards, Sir Donald McLeod, Mr. Forsyth, 
Colonel Lake, Major McMahon, Mr. Cust, the 
Rajah of Kapurthala, and many others, whose 
names I can not at this distance of time recall. The 
discussions were deeply interesting, having to do 
with themes and subjects that were important and 
very practical then. It was a social time of de- 
lightful memory. We were on one occasion en- 
tertained by Sir Donald McLeod at breakfast, on 
another at Mr. Forsyth's, and on another occa- 
sion by the Rajah of Kapurthala. He was a very 
interesting man, and was in high favor with Gov- 
ernment, as he had done much to aid the English 
in the mutiny. He furnished a contingent to co- 
operate with the army before Delhi. We were 



Twknty-one: Ykars in India. 167 

all much interested in him, from the fact that at 
this time he seemed about to embrace Christian- 
ity. He had married a Christian wife; he had 
invited a missionary to live at his capital. Rev. 
Mr. Woodside lived at Kapurthala at that time, 
and we enjoyed a most delightful visit to him 
on our way up country. The Rajah had made a 
generous subscription to our Mission, on Mr. 
Woodside's recommendation ; but some reverses 
came to him so far as his religious life was con- 
cerned. I think he never embraced Christianity 
fully, and the missionary was, after a time, re- 
moved. The most delightful hours of all were 
those we spent in the home of Mr. Foreman, 
where all the missionary body had a common 
table, and, when not invited out, spent the eve- 
ning in prayer and praise. The sessions of the 
Conference were confined to the daytime. We 
occupied tents in the Mission compound. It was 
one of the most delightful occasions I have known, 
at home or abroad. \Ye reached home about the 
loth of January, having had a truly royal time. 
During the season we were at Moradabad, I 



i68 I^w^nTy-one: Ye:ars in India. 

made the acquaintance of Pundit Nand Kishore 
who was a Government officer in charge of one 
of the Tahsils, or divisions, of the district under 
the EngHsh magistrate and collector. He lived 
at Sambhal, about twenty miles from Moradabad, 
and desired to open a school at his own expense, 
and desired me to visit him and render him some 
assistance in the organization of his enterprise. 
I did so, and found him a very interesting man 
indeed. He was very intelligent, and much in- 
terested in religious subjects. We became very 
warm friends and years afterward we were 
brought into very close contact by an enterprise 
of common interest to us both, of which I shall 
speak in a future chapter. Sambhal was a very 
interesting place. It was a very old city, and the 
people all over that part of India had a tradition 
that the tenth incarnation of Vishnu would ap- 
pear in Sambhal. They claim that there have 
already been nine incarnations of Vishnu, and 
they have all been unholy; but this last, which is 
to come, will be holy, and will bring in a better 
age for the world. This is no doubt a vague tra- 
dition that has come to them in some way in re- 



Twe:nty-one) Ye;ars in India. 169 

gard to our Savior. We used to hear more about 
this years ago than we do now. We used to tell 
them that the holy incarnation has already come, 
and that we had come to tell them about it. It 
seemed to prepare them to receive the account of 
our Lord's advent with favor. We occasionally 
meet with ideas and conceptions, bursting out 
from a mass of superstitions, that seem almost 
startlingly familiar, and we wonder where they 
came from. I have been told that in the south of 
India are two parties of Brahmins, holding di- 
verse theories in regard to the relation existing 
between God and ourselves. One party holds that 
God carries us as a cat carries her young, entirely 
independent of any action of our own. From 
this springs the doctrine of "kismat," or fate, 
which is generally held by the Hindus. Indeed, 
the people of India, both Hindus and Mohamme- 
dans, are, as a rule, fatalists. They say a man's 
*'kismat," is written on his forehead, and can not 
be changed. When calamity comes they are likely 
to meet it stoically, and say, ''kismat ki bat," it 
is fate. 



IJO l^WENTY-ON^ Ye:ARS IN InDIA. 

The other party holds to what is called the 
monkey theory. Our relation to God, they say, 
is like that existing between a monkey and her 
young. The mother carries the young; if they 
cling to her, they must grasp the mother and hold 
on. So, they say, God upholds and keeps us by our 
clinging to Him, not by His clinging to us, as 
the other party holds. In certain sections in the 
South, it is said, men holding these views are 
designated as belonging to the cat party, or to the 
monkey party. Certainly these theories seem 
very similar to those we are familiar with. 

I had much to do in visiting and caring for 
our native Christians at different points out in 
the district. There were little groups of from two 
to half a dozen families in villages, scattered 
about over the country miles apart. It was not an 
easy thing to reach them over the village roads, 
which were often far from being good, and scat- 
tered as they were ; but it was very important that 
they should be instructed and cared for. I bap- 
tized a good number of families this year, mostly 
among the Sikhs, of whom we have spoken in a 



Twe:nty-one: Years in India. 171 

previous chapter. That year wolves were very- 
numerous and troublesome. Immediately after 
the mutiny the people were disarmed, and wild 
beasts became a source of much danger in some 
localities. I was sleeping in an open shed one 
night, on a cot the people had provided for me, 
around me were a dozen or more sleeping on the 
ground. The natives always cover themselves up 
very closely, head and feet, if they happen to be 
the possessors of a blanket or a cotton chader 
(sheet), when they lie down on the ground or 
elsewhere to sleep. The chader serves them a 
very useful purpose; by day they wrap it about 
them, and at night, when they sleep, it serves as 
covering. In the night we were aroused by a cry, 
"a wolf." It seems that he had crept up and 
caught the clothing of one of the men and was 
tugging at it, when he awoke. I usually traveled 
on horseback, and often at night, in localities 
where there was danger of being attacked by 
wolves. 

We had some very pleasant acquaintances 
in the station, among the English residents, and 



172 Twe:nty-one: Yejars in India. 

all were very kind and took much interest in our 
work, and helped us with liberal donations. Our 
station doctor (civil surgeon, as called in India) 
was indeed a character. He was an Irishman of 
the most rabid kind, and intensely bitter toward 
the English. He would indulge more freely in 
his criticisms while with us than he would under 
other circumstances. The English are very out- 
spoken and free in their criticisms of public men 
and measures. I do not think they would have 
relished criticisms from us, like what they made 
to us freely. We were very careful to avoid put- 
ting them to the test in such ways. The magis- 
trate and collector was a good man, and showed 
us great kindnesses in many ways. Our work 
was full of interest, and fully absorbed all our 
powers. There were times when we were well- 
nigh overwhelmed by the darkness and wicked- 
ness that confronted us; but when we saw that 
some gain was being made, some were interested 
and moved by the Word, we were encouraged and 
enabled to press forward in our great work. Our 
Bazar preaching was attended with a good deal of 



TwKNTY-ONE YijARS IN InDIA. 1 73 

interest, and we kept it up regularly. In Novem- 
ber we went to the great Mela on the Ganges, the 
*'Puran Massee," where we preached to great 
crowds of people for about ten days. The season 
had been one of anxiety to me on account of my 
wife's illness. She had passed nearly all the sea- 
son in Naini Tal, and had been very dangerously 
ill a part of the time. The physician who attended 
her said she must leave India and return home. 
This came upon me suddenly, and was a very 
great trial. It had been impressed upon me that 
we were to live and die in India. I strongly hoped 
to do so. Our physician in Moradabad urged our 
going, assuring me that by doing so only could 
her life be prolonged. It was a real sorrow to 
leave the work, opening as it was with so much 
promise, and I felt I had now just reached a point 
where I could prosecute it with comfort to my- 
self and with a hope of success. It requires two 
or three years to get the language so as to be able 
to use it with facility and ease. It takes a longer 
time to so learn the people that we can really un- 
derstand them and see things from their stand- 



174 TwKnty-one: Ykars in India. 

point, and we must do this before we can influence 
them very much. After fully considering the 
matter it became evident to all that we must sever 
our connection with the work, for awhile at least, 
and return home. In those days we held our rela- 
tion to our home Conferences. I did not wish to 
be an occasion of expense to the Missionary So- 
ciety when at home, so I asked for an appoint- 
ment in my Conference. I have mentioned Main 
Phul Singh, one of our early converts from 
among the Sikhs, and also his wife's death ; hear- 
ing that we were to leave a little sooner than he 
supposed, he walked all night to reach us, that I 
might baptize a young woman and marry him 
to her before leaving. This service was held be- 
fore daylight on the morning of our departure 
from Moradabad. We reached home early in 
June, a few days more than seven years since 
sailing from Boston. 



CHAPTER X. 
Medical Work. 

While; on our journey over the mountains, 
from Landour to Naini Tal, in 1859, we were 
frequently applied to for medicine by the people 
living along the way, and I became much im- 
pressed with the importance of having some 
knowledge of medicine. My attention had pre- 
viously been directed to this subject in Calcutta. 
I went out to visit a village of native Christians 
in the rice-growing region south of Calcutta, 
where the land is for several months flooded, and 
the people work in the water a good deal. Of 
course, in such a region there is a large amount 
of malaria, and it is very sickly. 

Here I saw how important it was for the 
missionary in charge of these people to be able 
to render them medical aid. I then, for the first, 
became impressed with the fact that in being out 

175 



176 TwKnTy-one: Ye^ars in India. 

among the people away from the larger towns 
and cities it would not only be desirable, but abso- 
lutely necessary, to give medicine to the sick. 
India is a hot country, and in some seasons of the 
year steaming with malaria, and fevers of a 
malarious type are sure to prevail, and all other 
maladies that follow in the wake of malaria. 

The mass of the people in all especially mala- 
rious districts, if not actually prostrated by fever, 
suffer from enlarged spleen, disorders of the liver 
and digestive system, and are sure to be in a low 
condition of health generally. Their priests are 
supposed to be able to cure diseases of the body 
as well as the soul. 

They naturally enough suppose that mission- 
aries must have some knowledge of medicine, and 
can treat their bodily ailments. They have great 
faith, as a rule, in our system of medical treat- 
ment, and will come to us sooner than go to their 
own people for aid in times of difficulty. The use 
of medicine seems to them a necessary part of the 
duties of a missionary, and they take it for granted 
that he is skilled in the healing art. As time 



TwKnTy-one: Years in India. 177 

went on, I did what I could to qualify myself to 
treat the more common diseases I found prevail- 
ing as I went about among the people away from 
the centers, or Sudder Stations. I had medicines 
put up in convenient form for diseases that pre- 
vailed at different seasons, and always took them 
with me as I went among the people on my tours. 
This gained an entrance for me into many non- 
Christian families, and made friends, removed 
prejudice, and made them more favorably dis- 
posed towards us, and towards the native Chris- 
tians. In all this we are simply following in the 
footsteps of the Master Himself. He healed dis- 
eases and gained the attention and sympathy of 
the people thereby. In adopting this method in 
prosecuting our work, we can not be mistaken. 
India affords a very favorable field for this kind 
of work. I think every missionary, male and 
female, would do well to procure some knowledge 
of medicine, enough to enable them to treat com- 
mon diseases, as fevers, dysentery, enlargement 
of the spleen, rheumatic troubles, common skin 

diseases, congestions of the liver, and to know 
12 



178 Twi:nty-one: Ye^ars in India. 

what to do in emergencies or accidents. If one 
proposes to be about among the people very much 
in India, I am sure this is very desirable, and I 
have no doubt it is in other foreign countries as 
well. It is especially necessary to know how to 
take care of our health in foreign climates, that 
differ very much from our own. We can not do 
in India, as regards being out in the sun, as we 
are accustomed to do at home. Many, when they 
first arrive in India, think the missionaries are 
too careful, and so go on and expose themselves 
recklessly, and are soon stricken down and die, 
or have to be sent home, and so become a great 
expense to the society that sent them out. We 
are solemnly bound not to be careless, or impru- 
dent, in the treatment of ourselves on this ground. 
Our Missionary Society is very kind and generous 
in the treatment of those it sends out to foreign 
lands to represent them. It is a matter of honor, 
therefore, to guard against unnecessary exposure 
of our health. We are sometimes so placed by 
the demands of the work that we can hardly avoid 
some risk in this direction. In such cases one is 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 179 

certainly excusable. We often expose ourselves, 
no doubt, through ignorance; this may be ex- 
cusable, and it may not be; much depends upon 
circumstances. It seems to me that a carefully 
prepared work on this subject, with directions for 
the treatment of the more common and prevail- 
ing diseases, and what to do in emergencies and 
accidents, placed in the hands of every missionary 
going out, could but be very beneficial. I have 
long hoped some one well qualified might take 
up this subject and prepare such a book. It 
should not be a large book, nor especially learned, 
but simple and plain, so that non-professional 
people could easily understand it. I do not advo- 
cate doctors for India, so much as a good prac- 
tical knowledge of nursing, or how to care for 
the sick. There is not the need for medical mis- 
sionaries in India that there is in some other coun- 
tries, as China for instance. The Government 
has a very extensive medical system extending all 
over British India. In all the great cities are 
well-regulated hospitals, where the poor can ob- 
tain treatment and care free of all charges. In 



l8o Twi^NTY-ONi: YKARS IN InDIA. 

the smaller places, cities of from ten to twenty 
thousand population, are located branch hospitals 
and dispensaries, where people can obtain treat- 
ment and care in time of sickness. There is, per- 
haps, no country in the world better cared for 
than India is, in this, and in most other respects 
as regards care for the unfortunate classes. 
Too much can not be said in commendation of 
the British Government in India as regards all 
such features. A man goes out as a medical mis- 
sionar}^, and naturally desires to use his medical 
knowledge to the fullest and best extent. He 
must have a hospital, and that involves a consid- 
erable outlay, and it is not required, except in the 
out-of-way localities, where he does not care to 
spend his life. We have a fairly equipped hos- 
pital in Pithoragarh, founded by Dr. Gray many 
years ago, which has been of great service to the 
work there. We have a large and superior hos- 
pital, for women, in Bareilly, which is doing a 
great work, but we do not greatly need many ex- 
pensive hospitals of this kind. Every missionary 
may well desire to have some knowledge of medi- 



TwDnty-one: Years in India. i8i 

cine, as away from the cities and larger villages, 
where we find hospitals located, are large sections 
of country where no such institutions are found. 
In all these sections, as we travel through them, 
we can do much good by having a supply of medi- 
cine along, especially if we know how to use it; 
and further, now we are having native Christians 
in very many localities out in the country, and 
they will look to us for medicine when sick. So 
I decidedly say, what is needed is a good prelimi- 
nary knowledge of medicine for use out among 
the people, away from the larger cities. I have 
always thought that we ought to have some medi- 
cal instruction of this kind given to our young 
men, in our excellent Theological Seminary, so 
ably conducted for many years by Dr. T. J. Scott. 
I very much wish a department of this kind might 
be added, even if we had to drop some other sub- 
jects. Dr. Dease is well qualified to take charge 
of such a work as this. He has done much dur- 
ing past years in educating young women in 
medicine. 

Upon arriving home in 1864, I immediately 



l83 Twi:NTY-ONE: YEARS IN InDIA. 

began a systematic course of reading under a 
medical friend. I had no thought of completing 
a full course, but I kept on giving the subject at- 
tention as I could without neglecting my other 
duties. The Church I was serving here at Little 
Falls, kindly gave me permission to attend medi- 
cal lectures in Albany through the week, coming 
home to supply my pulpit on Sundays. In this 
way I accomplished the prescribed course and 
graduated in January, 1866. Not a very good 
thing to do. I certainly would not recommend it 
to anybody, but I was anxious to accomplish it 
for the work in India, for which I felt I had not 
had the preparation I could wish, and that this 
would, in some respects, make up for it. A little 
later I returned to India and was stationed at 
Naini Tal, where my home has been ever since, 
when I have been in India. 

Sir Henry Ramsay, Commissioner of Kumaon 
and Gurhwal, suggested that I should take charge 
of three Government hospitals, located at differ- 
ent points in the Bhaber at the foot of the moun- 
tains. After a time the Central Hospital, located 






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TwKnTy-one: Years in India. 183 

at Naini Tal, was placed under my charge; I had 
charge of these institutions for several years. 
They were charitable institutions, and I only re- 
ceived a traveling allowance to meet my expenses 
in visiting them, as I found it necessary in th^ir 
superintendence. The Government gave me an 
expression of thanks for my services, and made a 
liberal grant of medicines, supplies, and surgical 
instruments for two private or mission hospitals, 
one at Dwarahat, another at Bheem Tal, that I 
desired to open. I think much good was done by 
this work, though there were some difficulties at- 
tending it that made me doubt if it would be wise 
for us to continue to take charge of the hospitals 
after my time was up. The work was very exact- 
ing and exhausting, and had grown upon our 
hands so much that I thought it would not be 
wise for us to try to go on caring for the Gov- 
ernment part of it. 

I will now mention one case, out of many that 
might be cited, to show the way the people were 
affected by our work. It was our misfortune to 
have, in some way, given offense to one of the 



184 TwKNTY-ONH Years in India. 

leading and most wealthy natives of the place. 
It seems that this occurred when we first came to 
Naini Tal and began our school in the Bazar, 
early in 1858. How it came about, I do not re- 
member, but he had never forgiven us or been 
friendly with us in any way. He had talked 
against us, and in many quiet ways sought to 
counteract our efforts. I was, therefore, quite 
surprised one day to receive a call from him, 
when he frankly told me that he had never liked 
us. "But," said he, ''I like what you are doing; 
you are not like the rest of them, all talk ; you are 
doing something more than talk. I can talk as fast 
and loud as they can, but when I heard about 
your going to the Bazar in the storm and dark 
night to help a woman who had been hurt by the 
house falling in upon them, I said, I like that kind 
of a missionary." Ever after, to the end of his 
life, he was a warm and true friend. He was ever 
ready to do anything in his power to aid me, and 
was much more favorably disposed towards Chris- 
tianity than he had been in earlier years. He said, 
"I can not change now, I am too old. These young 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India. 185 

people can, and I am willing they should, if they 
will only be honest and sincere." His sons are 
prominent men now, in Naini Tal, and are very 
friendly and ready to assist us at any time when 
we ask it. They have often said to me late years, 
*'We can never forget how our father loved you." 
One day my friend, Pundit Nund Kishore, 
Tahsildar of Sambhal, in Moradabad District, 
came to see me, and suggested that I should un- 
dertake the education of a class of young native 
Christian women, with a view to their practicing 
among the better families, where the women are 
secluded, or behind the Purdah. I replied, ''Where 
can the young women having sufficient education 
be found?" He answered at once, "You can get 
them from your Girls' Orphanage in Bareilly." 
He proposed to be responsible for all expense the 
effort might involve. I promised to consider the 
subject and let him know my conclusion in a few 
days. After careful consideration and consulta- 
tion with Sir Henry, I determined to undertake 
it. I saw from the start that it would involve a 
great amount of labor and perplexity, but it 



i86 TwDNTY-ONK Yi:ars in India. 

seemed in the order of providence that I should 
make the effort. Nund Kishore apphed at once 
to Government for a "Grant in Aid," to help the 
project along", that he knew would bring the sub- 
ject before Government, and it would be talked' 
about in Government circles. Most of the Gov- 
ernment surgeons gave it as their opinion that 
the thing was not practicable; they said it would 
be a good thing if it were so, but, in their opinion, 
native women had not sufficient ability to grasp 
the subject, to begin with; and even if they had, 
they certainly do not have sufficient stamina and 
strength of character to enable them to practice 
with any fair degree of success. Sir William 
Muir, one of the very best men I have ever known, 
was Governor at the time, and was much inter- 
ested from the first. He said, "It, of course^ is an 
experiment, but it is worth trying; it may prove 
the beginning of a great popular movement." So 
the grant was given. In about two years a com- 
mittee of medical men of high standing was sent 
to report to Government the progress made by 
the young women. They examined them very 



Twknty-one: Years in India. 187 

thoroughly in everything gone over by them, es- 
pecially in the treatment of the sick and the man- 
agement of surgical cases, and they expressed 
themselves as pleased with the result of their ex- 
amination. Certificates were given to eight of 
the women, commending them as believed to be 
qualified to practice, having about the grade of 
fourth-class Government native doctors. Govern- 
ment was very glad to get some of these women 
as assistants in the large hospitals in the cities of 
the plains. I graduated four or five more the fol- 
lowing year. So much as this was accomplished 
by this effort ; it became certain, in the minds of 
prominent men in the service, in the medical de- 
partment, that, the education of native women in 
medicine is quite possible, and that, when educated, 
there is good ground to hope that they will prove 
themselves capable of doing good service. Gov- 
ernment immediately opened the medical schools 
to native Christian girls, and has done everything 
to encourage the movement. When Lord Duf- 
ferin came out as Viceroy, Her Majesty, the 
Queen, called Lady Dufferin's attention to this 



I^S '' TwE^NTY-ONi: YdARS IN InDIA. 

subject. Through her efforts a great work has 
been accompHshed for the women of India. Now 
there are female hospitals in nearly every large 
city, well supplied with female doctors, both Eu- 
ropean and native. Miss Dr. Swain had a class 
in Bareilly. Dr. Dease also had a class of this 
kind and did much in this direction. All these 
efforts helped to awaken interest in this great 
humane movement to provide medical assistance 
for the millions of women of India, who have been 
left to meet the ills that fall to the lot of woman, 
without such aid hitherto. 

I have just seen a statement that Lady Cur- 
zon, wife of the present Governor-General, is in- 
teresting herself in this movement, and has raised 
a large sum from wealthy natives to further the 
education of native women in medicine for prac- 
ticing in the homes of the higher classes of the 
people. 



CHAPTER XL 
Our Work in the Mountains. 

In this chapter I propose to describe the work 
in the mountains as it existed from 1868 to 1874. 
In one of the eadier chapters I have given an ac- 
count of the beginning of the work in Naini Tal. 
Some years before the mutiny, the Rev. J. H. 
Budden, of the London Missionary Society, lo- 
cated in Almorah, the old capital of Kumaon, 
about thirty miles to the northeast of Naini Tal. 
Mr. Budden had built up a very interesting work 
there, and was naturally desirous to extend it to 
all the centers about the interior hills. 

In 1859, after the close of our first Confer- 
ence, Mr. Thoburn, now Bishop Thoburn, was 
sent to Naini Tal, and during his time the work 
was extended in several directions, especially at 
the foot of the mountains, in what is known as 
the Bhaber, a tract of land lying in between the 

189 



190 Twknty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

mountains on one side, and the Tarai on the 
other. 

Sir Henry Ramsay, the Commissioner of Ku- 
maon and Gurhwal, was engaged in settHng this 
region with hill people. 

The meaning of the word Bhaber, is waterless 
forest. The soil is made up of debris washed 
down from the mountains, leaving it slightly de- 
scending towards the plains. In this soil water 
can not be obtained by digging wells, as it can 
in most of Upper India. This is one reason that 
makes this portion of India so fertile, water can 
be obtained for purposes of irrigation without 
great difiiculty. To provide water for their crops 
in this region of the Bhaber, a system of irrigation 
had been devised. The people living in the lower 
range of hills near, go down and clear the lands 
and make themselves winter homes in this lo- 
cality, and in this way they escape the cold of the 
mountains and raise good crops in a season when 
nothing can be grown in the hills. Then, when 
the hot season begins, they return to their homes 
in the mountains, and so escape the great heat of 



TwKNTY-ONE YKARS in InDIA. I9I 

the plains, and cultivate their fields in their moun- 
tain homes. This has been of the greatest ad- 
vantage to these people; it has made them very 
comfortable and well-to-do. 

Their fields in the Bhaber are now very beauti- 
ful and fertile, and, having a fine system of irri- 
gation, their crops seldom, if ever, fail. So the 
people of this region are much better off than in 
any other part of the country with which I am 
acquainted. 

We have had for many years a very interest- 
ing field for work during the cold season down 
in this locality. The time came when we wished 
to extend our work in the mountains, and in do- 
ing this some friction seemed likely to arise, and 
we were in danger of conflicting with the plans 
of our brethren of the other Mission. This was 
the condition of things when I was appointed to 
Naini Tal in 1868. As soon as I learned the 
conditions existing, I proposed a meeting of the 
missionaries of both Societies, in Almorah. This 
meeting was held, Messrs. Budden and Kenneday 
representing the London Mission ; Mr. Judd and 



192 Twe:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

myself representing our Society. Our mutual 
friend, Sir Henry Ramsay, met with us, and we 
soon arrived at an understanding, and a division 
of territory was agreed upon that has been per- 
fectly satisfactory from that day to this. We 
also formed a general organization, uniting all 
our Missions in the Provinces, for mutual help 
and improvement, under one general committee. 
Our plan provided for holding an annual meet- 
ing for both Europeans and natives, alternating 
between Naini Tal and Almorah, at which time 
it was proposed to hold a mass-meeting, bringing 
both classes into closer sympathy and contact, 
hoping thereby to awaken greater interest in the 
cause. It was thought that a large popular meet- 
ing of this kind might be the means of great good. 
And so it proved. Some most remarkable meetings 
were held. The first one was held in Naini Tal, 
in 1870, and it was one of the most impressive 
meetings I ever attended. Our Church was packed 
mostly with our native friends. Sir Henry Ram- 
say presided, and some stirring addresses were 
made by Europeans and natives. The effect of 




SA DAS AND FAMILY OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS. 



TwENTY-ONi: Years in India. 193 

the meeting in the Province was very far-reach- 
ing upon both classes, that is, Europeans and na- 
tives. Isa Das was baptized in Haldwane about 
this time. 

It had a fine effect upon the natives particu- 
larly, as they like frankness, something they 
themselves are not remarkable for, and like to 
have European officials speak out directly on the 
subject of religion. 

In addition to our central school at Naini Tal, 
we had several schools of a lower grade at dif- 
ferent points out in the hills at a distance varying 
from ten to fifteen miles. These schools were 
held in the hills in the hot season, and in the 
plains in the cold weather. We had a few that 
continued the year round in the Bhaber. They 
required a good deal of attention, and when visit- 
ing them, it gave me an excellent opportunity to 
meet the people and preach to them. I made a 
point of always carrying with me a good supply 
of medicines, and so prescribed for the sick. If I 
found any specially bad cases, I arranged for 
them to come into one of our hospitals, where 
13 



194 Twenty-one Years in India. 

they could have the care and attention needed. 
This they could not have in their homes in the 
villages. 

These were very busy years: the care of the 
schools, the constant demands of the sick, attend- 
ing at the hospitals, teaching the medical class, 
and all other incidental demands upon one's time. 
I wonder how I got through it all. In addition 
to all this, I had charge of a large English con- 
gregation, for which one service in the evening 
of each Sunday was held. This service was at- 
tended by Sir William Muir and family, and 
many others connected with Government. This 
service was only continued for about eight months 
in the year. The remaining months were devoted 
entirely to native work, such as supervising the 
schools and hospitals, and visiting the villages in 
the country about the foot of the hills. 

In 1870 we had a visit from Rev. William 
Taylor, who was very celebrated as an evangelist 
in those days, and whose labors had been attended 
with great success in South Africa and Australia, 
and in other countries, as well as at home. In 



TwENTY-ON^ YljARS IN InDIA. I95 

South Africa he had preached through an inter- 
preter to heathen natives with marked success ; we 
hoped he might do so in India as well, but for 
some reason that method of speaking to the people 
did not succeed as we hoped it might. He held 
meetings among the natives quite extensively, and 
with some success, but his great work was done 
among English-speaking people. He spent about 
two months with us in Naini Tal, and was an 
inmate of our home for that period, and held a 
series of special meetings in our Naini Tal 
Church, and many started out in an earnest Chris- 
tian life. Mr. Taylor was very well received by 
the English residents of Naini Tal, and we re- 
ceived great good from his stay among us. 

While with us at that time, he and Mrs. 
Humphrey compiled and prepared for the press 
an English Hymn-book, with tunes, which he sent 
to England to his publisher there, and in due time 
it came out in very attractive style. Mr. Taylor 
sent us a present of two hundred copies for the 
use of our congregation. This book served a 
most useful purpose with us for a good number of 



196 Twi:nty-one: Years in India. 

years, but it has now been superseded by newer 
publications. 

Mr. Taylor's coming to us marks an era in 
our history as a mission. He soon recognized 
that his mission was to the English-speaking pop- 
ulation. We have many such who are born in 
India. Many of them are of mixed descent and 
are known as Eurasians ; to them, in every sense, 
India is home. There are others born in India, 
who are not of mixed descent, but India is their 
home; they have but little, if any, expectation of 
ever leaving it. 

There are communities scattered about over 
the country, and in the large towns, and on the 
lines of railway, on the coffee and tea plantations, 
and about the mines of different kinds worked in 
various parts of the country. The largest Eng- 
lish-speaking communities are found in the Presi- 
dency towns, or great seaports, as Bombay, Cal- 
cutta, Madras, and so on. Mr. Taylor soon 
found his way to these great centers, and im- 
portant and most useful Churches have been 
raised up in all of those places. If any one famil- 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India. 197 

iar with the history of this movement ever 
doubted that we have a mission to the EngHsh- 
speaking people of India, if they will consider 
what has been done in the way of Churches raised 
up, schools founded, and souls saved, I am sure 
they will doubt no more. 

As a Church, I think we feel that we have 
had a very honorable part in helping to improve 
the moral tone of European society in India. 

Mr. Taylor began his work independent of 
our Missionary Society, and his plan was that it 
should be carried on on a self-supporting basis, 
and it was carried on in this way for some years, 
but at length it was adopted by the Board, and is 
now carried on as all our work is, directly under 
the Missionary Society. 

I have spoken of Mr. Taylor's visit to us as 
forming a crisis in our history. It does so in this 
way : our mission field had been definitely located 
as embracing Oudh, Rohilcund, and the mountain 
districts of Kumaon and Gurhwal. We had 
found it necessary to break over our bounds, in 
one or two instances, before Mr. Taylor's arrival. 



198 TwKNTY-ONE Yi:arS in InDIA. 

His work extending over the South of India, 
made it necessary to extend our Hmits until we 
ceased to recognize any Hmits whatsoever. We 
came to feel that we must let God lead us, and 
He does not set bounds to his work as we are 
inclined to do. We have had many things to 
learn as the years have gone by, and among them 
is this : it is better to let God lead us by his Provi- 
dence and Spirit as to where we should go and 
what we should do. 

Before dismissing the subject of Mr. Taylor's 
visit, I desire to add a word as to how he im- 
pressed me. I had a very good opportunity to 
study his character as he appeared at that time. 
He was with us in our home for about two months, 
and he could not see just what God's plan was for 
his future. He had finished his work in our Mis- 
sion in the plains, and he was now waiting to see 
where God would lead him. He waited very pa- 
tiently for the Lord to show him His will. I 
think I have never seen such unwavering faith as 
he seemed to exercise. He seemed to feel that he 
and the I^ord had a perfect understanding ; he did 



Twenty-one: Yi:ars in India. 199 

not seem to have a single doubt, under circum- 
stances that most persons would have felt to be 
rather dark and forbidding. I felt that he was 
indeed a great man of God. He was peculiar in 
many things, but it seemed to me easy to see that 
-he was a remarkable man, and that God was with 
him in a wonderful way. This was an opinion 
formed of him many years ago, before he became 
the founder of our extensive and wonderful work 
in South America, and our pioneer Bishop of 
Africa. 

An interesting incident occurred this season, 
which may be worth mentioning. Our colporter 
Obadiah, whose field of labor was down at the 
foot of the mountains, when out on one of his 
tours, was overtaken by night when in an isolated 
nook among the foothills of the Great Himalayas. 
He was hospitably entertained by a Hindu family 
living in the region. The members of the family 
became much interested in what he told them 
about our Savior, and in the morning would take 
nothing for his entertainment, but insisted in pay- 
ing him his price for a Testament in Hindee. In 



200 TwE:NTY-ONi: Yi:ars in India. 

a few months I had the great privilege of baptiz- 
ing the whole family, which consisted of a father 
and mother and two sons. 

That Testament was loaned to another family 
some miles away in the mountains, and I soon 
after baptized that family, and then several others. 
In a little time a Christian community was gath- 
ered in the Bhaber, in which we were deeply in- 
terested for many years. The families gathered 
in at that time are nearly all gone now. 

In 1873, owing to malarial fever contracted 
down at the foot of the hills, I was induced to 
take a voyage from Calcutta around to Bombay 
on a coasting steamer. We visited all the ports 
along our route. I was especially delighted with 
our visit to Columbo, in Ceylon, where we were 
very hospitably entertained by a gentleman of 
the name of Ferguson, if I remember correctly. 
He was the editor of the leading paper of that 
place. They were a lovely family, and we enjoyed 
a day or two of rest in their lovely home, more 
than I can express. Their residence was situated 
in a grove of cocoanut trees, a few rods from the 
sea. 



Twi:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. aoi 

The breaking of the great waves on the shore 
as they came rolHng in from the vast expanse of 
ocean off at the south, was hke the booming of a 
cannon. The memory of those dear people has, 
through all the years, been very precious to us. 
They were Baptists, and a few days before had 
received a visit from some of their missionaries 
on the way to Burmah, who were at that time on 
the sea. By appointment, at a given hour Sun- 
day evening, we sang a hymn which was written 
as a prayer for friends at sea, and then they were 
most lovingly remembered in prayer. We were 
much touched by this loving thoughtfulness, and 
could well appreciate it, situated as we were at 
the time. We had a most delightful trip over 
the pearl fishery ground to Tuticorin on the 
main land, where we had a wedding of a lady 
who had just come out from England, and was 
met by an engineer on a railway being built in the 
interior, some distance from the coast. We saw 
them married, got up as good a dinner for them 
as possible in the rickety old Dak Bungalow, and 
started them off in an ox-cart for their journey 



202 Twe:nty-one Ye:ars in India. 

into the interior to their home that was to be for 
a time. We had a most dehghtful stay of two or 
three days in Bombay, and then hastened to Alla- 
habad to attend the great Missionary Conference 
to be held there, beginning on Christmas-day and 
continuing until New- Year's. This was a much 
larger meeting than the one held ten years before 
in Lahore, but it lacked the presence of the dis- 
tinguished laymen who took a prominent part in 
that meeting. There were missionaries present 
from every part of India, and it was a very in- 
spiring and memorable meeting. Another Mis- 
sionary Conference was held in Calcutta in 1883, 
which was very successful. Another was held 
in Bombay in 1893. One has just been held in 
Madras, which seems to have been a large and im- 
portant meeting. 

Towards the end of this season, 1873, my 
friend, Pundit Nund Kishore, sent for me to 
come to Moradabad and visit him. I found him 
very ill and evidently nearing his end. He said, 
"I have not sent for you as a doctor merely, but 
I wish to talk with you and learn what I must 



TwKNTY-ONK Ye:arS IN InDIA. ^OJ 

do to be saved." I urged him to accept Christ 
and trust in Him alone. I spent two days with 
him and explained the way to him as fully as I 
could, and I think he did accept Christ as his 
Savior, and continued to do so to the end. On 
two or three occasions he and his wife and all 
the members of his family would come in and 
kneel around his bed while I led in prayer. This 
means a great deal more than those who do not 
know the circumstances can well understand, for 
a high caste Hindu to call in his wife and family 
for prayer in this way was a very marked and 
impressive confession of faith in our holy re- 
ligion. 

I had the pleasure of introducing Brother and 
Sister Parker to the family, who, I knew, would 
delight to minister to them in their affliction, and 
returned to my home in Naini Tal. The Pundit 
died soon afterward, I believe a true believer in 
Christ, though he did not make a public pro- 
fession of Him other than that made in his fam- 
ily. We have many such cases in India, who are 
never counted in our statistics as Christians ; but 



204 Twi:nty-one Ykars in India. 

who can doubt that they are counted among the 
redeemed in heaven ? 

Towards the end of the season it became evi- 
dent that I must seek an entire change. I could 
not get rid of the malaria, and was on the verge 
of nervous prostration. My medical friends all 
said I must get out of the country and return 
home. So, with many regrets, I bade my friends 
in India good-bye for the second time, after about 
fifteen years' service in the field, and returned to 
the United States. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Naini Tal, Pithoragarh, and the Tarai. 

Upon my leaving Naini Tal in 1874, the Eng- 
lish congregation had reached a point of develop- 
ment where it was felt that a pastor was needed 
for it who might devote his entire time and 
strength to its interests, and that his support could 
be provided by the congregation. I had been oc- 
cupied with a large amount of native work of 
different kinds, as well as the medical work, which 
itself was enough to tax the energies to the ut- 
most of one well and strong man, and could not 
give my chief attention to the English Church. 
My salary had been paid from home, so they 
could not command my services beyond what 
seemed proper to give, all other parts of the work 
being taken into the account. The English work 
we had always considered as a kind of adjunct 
to the other work, or as something thrown in, 
that we might do if we could without interfering 

205 



2o6 TwKNTY-ONi: Ye:ars in India. 

very much with our real work, which we thought 
to be among the people of the country or the na- 
tives. The Church had now reached a stage in 
its development when this did not seem to meet 
its demands. 

The congregation had contributed liberally to 
the native work, and had enlarged the church 
building and helped materially in many ways, and 
ever stood ready to do anything they were de- 
sired to do for the furtherance of the work, but 
now they thought they might undertake the sup- 
port of a pastor of their own^ and so leave him 
free to give all his time and strength to the care 
of the Church. The matter was laid before Bishop 
Harris upon his visit to us, and upon returning 
to the United States he appointed the Rev. N. G. 
Cheney, of New York East Conference, to Naini 
Tal, who was most warmly received, and liberal 
arrangements were made for his support. In a 
short time a house was built by the congregation 
for the pastor's residence, and he soon gathered 
about him many devoted and loyal friends. His 
pastorate of six years was in every way a very 




NAINI TAL ENGLISH CHURCH 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 207 

successful one. Many Avere helped and strength- 
ened in the Christian life, and the Church was 
made a power for good in our Anglo-Indian com- 
munity of Upper India. 

During Mr. Cheney's lastyear a beautiful stone 
church was built at the lower end of the lake, a 
mile away from the Mission premises. In 1880 
a most disastrous landslide occurred. The side of 
a mountain came down, sweeping away a large 
hotel and several other buildings contiguous to 
the Mission property, seriously damaging several 
of our residences, and especially endangering the 
Mission church. The cause of the disaster was a 
very heavy fall of rain. In thirty-six hours as 
many inches of rain fell ; this loosened the gravelly 
soil of the mountain, and, the base having been 
dug away for building purposes, the whole moun- 
tain side came down, bearing large trees with it, 
and sweeping everything before it. This was the 
most destructive landslide ever known in the his- 
tory of the place. A large amount of property 
was destroyed, and much more was seriously dam- 
aged, and many lives were lost. 



2o8 TwKnty-one: Years in India. 

It seriously damaged the station, and for a 
time threatened its destruction; but the Govern- 
ment at once set vigorously about repairing the 
damage and introducing precautionary measures, 
so the place was soon rendered far more safe than 
it had ever been before, and gradually public con- 
fidence was restored. 

Our Mission houses were not actually de- 
stroyed, but they were badly damaged, and it was 
feared for a time that they could never again be 
safe enough to make people willing to occupy 
them. They were much battered and broken, and 
the rooms were filled to the ceiling with shale that 
came down the mountain side in the great storm. 
The Mission church did not suffer as much as 
most of our other buildings, but it was thought 
to be unsafe, and so measures were at once taken 
to build a place of worship at the lower end of 
the lake. This was completed in about a year. 
At the end of Mr. Cheney's pastorate of six years, 
I took over the charge from him. This was my 
third appointment to Naini Tal. The new church 
building had just been dedicated upon my arrival. 



TwENTY-OxXK Years in India. 209 

I immediately set about the renovation of the 
Mission property, and found that the buildings 
were not as badly damaged as was supposed to 
be the case. They were soon repaired, and grad- 
ually, as the people gained confidence, they were 
rented and occupied. 

The same year that I took charge of the Eng- 
lish Church, Miss E. I. Knowles, of New Jersey, 
came out to take charge of an English girls' 
boarding-school, which had been opened a short 
time before. She conducted this school for five 
or six years with signal success, and during her 
administration a fine property was purchased for 
the school, and it was placed on a substantial and 
permanent foundation. Under the able manage- 
ment of its present principal, Miss S. A. Easton, 
and her very efficient assistant, Miss Rue Sellers, 
it has become one of the best schools of its kind 
in India — one that does us the greatest credit, 
and of which we are all proud. I found a school 
also for English-speaking boys, which had been 
opened by Dr. Waugh during Mr. Cheney's pas- 
torate. The Rev. H. F. Kastendieck, now of 
14 



2IO Twi:nty-one: Ykars in India. 

New York East Conference, was in charge of it. 
The school was under the management of the 
EngHsh Church, through its pastor. It was con- 
ducted by a committee of gentlemen representing 
the Church during my pastorate of two years 
following. It then passed over into the hands 
of the Conference, and is conducted by a com- 
mittee appointed by that body. 

This school now has a fine property and loca- 
tion, and is prospering under the principalship of 
the Rev. Dr. Butcher. It is a fine school now, 
and stands well among other schools of the kind 
in the country. For a season I was engaged in 
native work, and spent some time in Eastern 
Kumaon and in the Tarai. In Pithoragarh, on 
the borders of Nepal, a very prosperous work 
had been built up by Dr. Gray and Miss Anna 
Budden. Dr. Gray had opened a hospital, which 
was much needed in this locality. The building 
was well suited to the needs of the place, and all 
of its appointments were excellent. I found it 
under the charge of Mr. Amos Miller, a very 
competent native doctor, who is still in charge of 
it, so far as I am informed. 



TwKnty-one: Ykars in India. 211 

At that time, Miss Budden was on leave to 
the United States, and Miss Nickerson and Miss 
Phebe Rowe were in charge of the work in the 
women's department. They were both of them 
noble missionaries. A few years later, Miss Nick- 
erson died on her way home, and was buried in 
the Red Sea. Miss Rowe died with us in Naini 
Tal, a few years ago, and we laid her away in 
our beautiful station cemetery, where Bishop 
Parker now rests. I can say without any qualifi- 
cation or doubt, that Miss Rowe was one of the 
most saintly characters it has ever been my privi- 
lege to know. She was greatly honored by all 
that knew her, whether among Europeans or na- 
tives. Her loss was greatly felt by us all in 
India. 

We had several schools located at different 
points about the district out there. These were 
full of interest to me. I exceedingly enjoyed vis- 
iting them and meeting the people, who would 
come to the schoolhouse to see me, thus affording 
me an excellent opportunity to preach to them. 
I always made a point of seeing any sick people 



213 Twe:nTy-oni: Ye:ars in India. 

that might present themselves, and I often went 
with them to their homes to see sick ones there, 
that could not come to see me, and often they 
would bring their sick out to intercept me on the 
road where they knew I would pass. There were 
a great number of lepers in this part of the hills. 
We had many cases presenting themselves at the 
hospital, in cases where the disease was in its in- 
cipient stages; that is, before it had so far de- 
veloped as to be unmistakable. On Sundays, at 
the close of our morning service, a score or more 
of these poor unfortunate people would be found 
sitting on the ground, a little distance away, so 
as to be quite separate from the other people, 
waiting for us to speak to them and make them 
some small gift, to enable them to procure food. 
Since that time an asylum has been built for these 
people in that region, and they are well cared for 
now, both as regards their bodies and souls. The 
circumstances attending the opening of the asy- 
lum are rendered very pathetic by the case of Miss 
Mary Reid, who is the superintendent of it. Miss 
Reid is one of the missionaries of the Woman's 



Twenty-one: Yi:ars in India. 213 

Missionary Society, and while home on furlough 
she felt that in some way, entirely unknown to 
her, she had contracted the dreadful disease. She 
consulted physicians in this country, but they were 
not familiar with the disease, and could not de- 
cide with any degree of certainty ; but the general 
opinion was that it was leprosy. She left home 
and returned, feeling that she was a leper. On 
her way she consulted physicians in London who 
had been in India and were familiar with the 
disease; they gave it as their opinion that it was 
leprosy, but it is not always easy to diagnose the 
disease in its earlier stages, as I well know from 
actual experience. But Miss Reid went back feel- 
ing that this great burden of sorrow had been 
assigned her in God's providence for a purpose, 
and that was, that she should devote her life to 
ministering to these poor suffering people. 

In due time an asylum was built on a beautiful 
eminence overlooking the shore valley, as you 
approach it from the west, and she has had charge 
of it for some years now. Miss Reid is a culti- 
vated and devoted Christian lady, and has nobly 



2i4 1^we:nty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

borne her heavy cross. She is doing a most gra- 
cious work of compassion, and she will have many 
stars to shine in her crown from among these 
poor afflicted people. I am glad to say, that ac- 
cording to my latest information, her condition is 
much improved, and she believes she is cured. 

Miss Budden has done a great work in that 
part of the province, particularly among women. 
She had a great work when I knew it, which was 
quite a number of years ago ; it must have grown 
a good deal since that time. I have heard it said 
that among the people generally in that region of 
the country, she is held in the highest regard and 
is honored by all. 

To the north of Pithoragarh, up under the 
snowy range, near the pass over into Thibet, is 
the country of the Bhootias, where Miss Dr. Shel- 
don has labored untiringly for some years, and 
her devoted friend and assistant, Miss Brown, 
who is a Naini Tal girl, and whom I have known 
from her childhood. A few like Phebe Rowe 
and Miss Brown will amply repay us for all we 
have done for these people. I think we shall yet 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 215 

have many missionaries raised up from among 
the Enghsh-speaking people of India. They are 
particularly well adapted to the work in some 
respects; they know the language of the natives 
from childhood, and, having grown up among 
the people, they naturally know them much better 
than we can who come to them farther on in life 
and from another distant and very different coun- 
tr}^ It is a very important matter for a mission- 
ary to know the people well and to sympathize 
with them; it is not a very easy thing for us to 
really come to know them ; it takes time and effort 
to do this. Those born in the country have an 
advantage in this respect. I have felt for years 
that if we can reach English-speaking people, and 
get them baptized with the Holy Spirit, we would 
surely reach the natives and a revival would break 
out among them. I do not think the importance 
of our schools and English work generally in 
India is fully appreciated in this country. I think 
our schools for this class of people should have a 
heartier support at home than they seem to have. 
At this point a few words about the hill peo- 



2i6 Twe:nty-on^ Ykars in India. 

pie may be well. As we come among them at 
first we are impressed by the fact that they are 
not like the plains people in many of their char- 
acteristics. The Hindus are of Aryan origin; 
their ancestors came from some place in Central 
Asia, probably Persia ; a portion of the same stock 
emigrated to the West, entered Europe, and we 
are descended from them^ so that we, and the 
ancestors of the Hindus, are of the same race. 
When the Aryans arrived in Upper India they 
found it already inhabitated by a people that came 
into the country from Central Asia farther to the 
East. These people are called Indo-Burmans, or 
Kolarians. The Aryans crowded them out of 
the plains and drove them into the mountains, 
where many of them may be found at the pres- 
ent time, not much advanced from what they were 
when the Aryans first came in contact with them. 
Generally in India they have been assimilated 
into Hinduism. They have accepted caste and 
call themselves Hindus. Buddhism, too, has fil- 
tered into the hills from the way of Burmah, so 
we find it in Nepal. Kumaon formerly belonged 



Twe:nty-one Years in India. 217 

to the Nepalese, and was taken from them by the 
British. We have no Buddhism in the hills, so 
far as I know, in the British possessions, or in the 
plains either. Buddhism is strong in Ceylon and 
in Burmah. There are about eight or nine mil- 
lions of Buddhists in those sections, and about as 
many of the aboriginals living in the hills and 
wild parts of the country. 

There came into India by the passes to the 
Northwest, the same that the Aryans, later, en- 
tered the country by, a class sometimes called 
Scythians, now usually known as Dravidians, 
probably from Turkistan; these swept on to the 
South and settled Southern India, but they have 
all been assimilated by the Hindus. Sir William 
Hunter thinks the number of undoubted descend- 
ants of the Aryans is probably not much more than 
about twenty millions. It must be seen that the 
assimilating power of the Hindu system is amaz- 
ing. There are over two hundred and seven mil- 
lions of so-called Hindus in India. There is very 
little attention paid as to what a man believes, 
or what he does, so long as he recognizes the 



3lS TwEjNTY-ONi: Y^ARS IN InDIA. 

supremacy of the Brahmins, and obeys the laws 
of caste; so it can be seen that Brahminism or 
Hinduism is composed of a great mass of crude 
and gross ideas, systems, and observances, quite 
beyond the power of comprehension, certainly be- 
yond our power or ability to explain. Hinduism 
is, in fact, a great mass, of corruption, with very 
little redeeming connected with it. To me it is 
a marvel that the people reared under it are as 
good as they are, or that they have any good 
about them. Before passing entirely from East- 
ern Kumaon, it may be well to mention one in- 
cident that occurred at that time, that has given 
me much encouragement and satisfaction. A 
man of rather a high caste came to me one day, 
bringing with him a Testament in the Hindee 
language, and urgently entreated me to read it 
with him, and explain it to him. Though in- 
tensely pressed with w^ork of many different 
kinds, I promised to give him a half hour each 
day, he coming very promptly at the hour named. 
We began our reading, closing with a short 
prayer. This was continued for several weeks, 



TwknTy-one: Ye:ars in India. 219 

until I left the place. vSome months afterward, 
word came to me one day in Naini Tal that a 
man in a certain part of the station, who was dy- 
ing with cholera, was most anxious to see me. I 
hastened to him and found him in the collapse 
stage of the disease, and evidently near his end. 
His mind was perfectly clear, as is likely to be 
the case with one dying from that fearful dis- 
ease. He expressed his delight at seeing me, and 
said he wished to tell me how glad he was that I 
spent those hours with him in Shore, and taught 
him to know; and love Jesus. He added, "I am 
not afraid to die; I am going to Him." He had 
victory through the blood of Calvary, and there, 
in that little hut — he lying on the ground, with no 
human friend near, and dying — was heaven. It 
was only one instance out of many of a similar 
kind; it was only one poor man — one soul saved 
— yet it was amply worth all I had gone through 
in course of my missionary life in India. The 
memory of that hour will never be forgotten. 

This year I had charge of some interesting 
work in the Tarai. There is a class of people 



220 Twi^NTY-ONE) YKARS IN InDIA. 

through that section called Tarus. They were 
neither Hindus nor Mohammedans, and we knew 
very little of their history, as to where they came 
from, and what brought them where they were. 
We thought they gave promise of becoming 
Christians in a body, as the Sikhs in the Morada- 
bad district did in the early history of our work ; 
and along at different times through the years 
that had intervened, since Brother Thoburn had 
come in contact with them while he was living at 
Naini Tal, we heard of them^ and hoped much 
from them, but somehow they never made any 
decisive move toward becoming Christians. They 
came to me and besought me to visit them. I did 
so, and spent some time among them. I found 
one thing seemed to stand in their way ; they were 
exceedingly fond of drink. They claimed they 
could not live in the Tarai without it, as much 
of the year it is fearfully sickly all through that 
region. This, I think, had much to do in turn- 
ing them from their purpose to become Christians, 
as we strongly insisted, as the first step, that they 
must abandon all forms of intoxicating drink. 



Tw:^NTY-ONE Years in India. 221 

This they were not willing to do. Had they lived 
in localities where we could have had access to 
them, I think it might have been different with 
them. As it was, they were surrounded by those 
who would have been bitter enemies to them 
had they became Christians, and being demoral- 
ized by drink, their convictions were not suffi- 
ciently deep to enable them to face the difficulties 
that confronted them. They knew that they could 
have but little help from us, as we could go 
into that section during only a very small part 
of the year ; it would be suicidal to attempt it, so 
they felt that they would be at the mercy of their 
heathen and Mohammedan neighbors. So what 
seemed a movement full of promise, failed. 
Many others were on the point of embracing 
Christianity in that region, and no doubt would 
have done so if we could have properly cared for 
them. 

We had a number of schools that we superin- 
tended for Mr. J. C. MacDonald, the officer of 
Government in charge of that district. Mr. Mac- 
Donald was a nephew of Sir Henry Ramsay, and 



222 TWHNTY-ON^ YljARS IN InDIA. 

was a most excellent Government officer, and did 
a great deal to improve the condition of the peo- 
ple of the Tarai. Dr. Dease and myself rendered 
him" what help we could in caring for the schools 
and dispensaries located at different points for 
the advantage of the people. We have every rea- 
son to think that our efforts were appreciated, 
both by Mr. MacDonald and the people them- 
selves. He was a warm friend of us both, and 
was most ready to help us in every way in our 
work. He died in middle life from diseases con- 
tracted in this sickly country. His was a noble 
devotion to duty. He did, in fact, give his life 
for the people he presided over as a Government 
servant. I often thought of him as an example 
to me, and earnestly sought grace that I might 
be as faithful in caring for the souls of the peo- 
ple as he was in caring for their worldly interests. 
This closed my third period of service, and, 
with many regrets, I felt it necessary to return to 
the United States, regarding it probable that my 
work was done in India. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Hindu People. 

The: last census, that of 1901, makes the pop- 
ulation of India to be 294,382,676. Of these 
there are 207,147,023 Hindus, and 62,458,077 
Mohammedans. These are the people with whom 
we have to do chiefly in Upper India, where our 
Missions were originally located. 

The importance of a thorough knowledge of 
the people to a missionary, and, in fact, to any 
who would approach them understandingly, with 
a purpose of gaining an influence over them and 
doing them good, can not by any means be over- 
estimated. Therefore, I propose to insert a chap- 
ter on both these classes, and I trust my long and 
intimate acquaintance with these people may be 
considered a sufficient apology for any seeming 
lack of unity in the plan of this work. 

It seems that the Hindus are, like ourselves, 

223 



224 Twi^NTY-ONi: Yi:aRS IN InDIA. 

of Aryan origin, and, from what we can gather, 
they came from some place in Persia and entered 
India by way of the passes to the northwest, and 
settled somewhere to the north of Delhi, in what 
is now known as the Pan jab, about 2,000 years 
B. C. They were a noble race, large, well-formed, 
thoughtful, and intelligent. They were an agri- 
cultural people, and kept flocks and herds. They 
had a decided religious tendency, and worshiped 
one Supreme Deity. The relations of the family 
were known and valued, woman was accorded 
her rightful position, early marriages were dis- 
credited, there were no idols among them at this 
period. They had their priests who were their 
religious teachers, and were respected and looked 
up to as such. Their sacred books are called 
Vedas, from Vid, to know, and are four in num- 
ber. The first of these, the Rig- Veda, is com- 
posed of hymns used in worship. The Vedic 
period of Hindu history dates from about the 
fourteenth century B. C, and extends to the time 
of Manu, in about the seventh or eighth century 
B. C. The Vedas were not reduced to writing 



Twi:nty-oni: Ye:ars in India. 225 

until somewhat later than the fourteenth century ; 
but were in use orally before that. They recog- 
nized one Supreme Being, but the elements of na- 
ture they regarded as manifestation of Him. 
Indra was the god of rain, Agni the god of fire, 
Surya the sun, Ushas the dawn. They seemed 
to have been greatly impressed by natural phe- 
nomena, and these manifestations were regarded 
as inferior forms of the Deity. Along through 
these centuries the Sanscrit ceased to be a spoken 
language ; if it ever had been, it now ceased to be 
generally understood. The priests alone knew 
the mystic texts and sacred rites. An error in 
pronunciation might prove the destruction of the 
worshiper. All this worked for the elevation of 
the Brahmins, and gradually they grew into a 
caste, into which no one could enter who was not 
of priestly descent. The Code of Manu was evi- 
dently the work of the Brahmins, and it was so 
constructed as to work for their supremacy. 

Then followed the period of philosophy and 
ritualism. There are three systems of philoso- 
phy: First, the Nyaya, which may be denomi- 
15 



2^6 TwKNTY-ONi: Years in India. 

nated as theistic; second, the Sankhya, which is 
atheistic; the third, the Vedanta, which is pan- 
theistic. It had now become a period of specu- 
lation and rituahsm. Nothing is real, all is Maya, 
or illusion ; a shadow or a dream ; God is all, and 
all is God. 

While speculation was thus busy, sacerdotal- 
ism was continually strengthening its hold upon 
the people. The Brahmin had made himself in- 
dispensable in all sacred rites ; he alone could pro- 
nounce the words of awful mystery and power on 
which depended all weal or woe. On all occa- 
sions the priest must be called in and implicitly 
obeyed. Never was sacerdotalism more complete 
or more arrogant and tyrannical. Then came in 
the system of caste, stereotyping the existing or- 
der, declaring against all change, and making it a 
sacred institution. Form is now declared to be 
more important than doctrine or the gods them- 
selves. Covering this period of ritualism are the 
six Shasters. Then covering the period of mod- 
ern Hinduism are the eighteen Puranas. 

Along with pantheism came in polytheism 



TwENTY-ONK Ykars in India. 237 

and the doctrine of transmigration. Hinduism is 
a strange medley of these systems. It has ab- 
sorbed into itself the local deities and demons of 
the Animistic races. Indeed, it has absorbed 
every system of belief it has come in contact with. 
Buddhism arose as a protest against the arro- 
gance and corruptions of Brahminism, and when 
they failed to overcome this system by force, they 
resorted to their usual artifice, and incorporated 
Buddha into their pantheon and made him the 
ninth incarnation of Vishnu. 

Brahminism has, however, never for one mo- 
ment failed to maintain its claim to supremacy, 
and the sternest restrictions of caste. Men may 
do what they like, believe what they please; as 
long as they observe these two things, they are 
regarded good Hindus. Macaulay said of Brah- 
minism: "All is hideous and grotesque and ig- 
noble. The thirty-three gods of Vedic times have 
been increased to three hundred and thirty-three 
millions of gods. The vilest acts are unblush- 
ingly ascribed to their gods. The very best of 
them are impure, and some of them are vile be- 



228 TwElNTY-ONi: YKARS IN InDIA. 

yond anything we can imagine even. Kalee is 
a bloodthirsty demon, and yet multitudes worship 
her to-day. The whole system is impure and cor- 
rupt beyond description. The gods are liars and 
impure ; why should the people be anything else ? 
You can not expect the people to be better than 
the gods they worship." The whole system of 
Brahminism is corrupt and hideous. I have seen 
things with my own eyes in Naini Tal, right 
alongside a high form of Christian civilization, 
that I could not speak of. I have witnessed things 
in their temples so vile and impure that they can 
not be spoken of. I have come in very close con- 
tact with the people, not only as a missionary, 
but as a medical man, and I know how very cor- 
rupt the people are. 

I do not charge it so much against the people 
as against the system. It is dreadful to think of 
what Hindu mothers teach their children of the 
doings of their gods. Some people in these days 
are talking about the beautiful things they find 
in the Brahminical system. It is beautiful to see 
young women married to the gods in the temples, 
and the worship of the 'linga" is beautiful as al- 



Twenty-one: Years in India. 229 

legory. I have only to say all this shows what 
poor mortals we are and how easily duped. These 
young women are common characters and bring 
gain to the Brahmins as the price of their vile- 
ness. The beautiful things of Brahminism are 
indeed Maya and illusion. 

The heathen are wickedj they are sunken in 
fearful depths of sin. This is the fact; and only 
the Gospel of the Son of God can save them. 
That can do it, as we know; we have seen it 
save them and make them pure, good, and lovely. 
A very superior native gentleman, highly edu- 
cated, and holding a high position in one of the 
departments of the medical service of the Gov- 
ernment, was at one time much exercised on the 
subject of religion, and he met me with this state- 
ment, as I urged the claims of Christ upon him : 
"It is impossible for me to live a pure life. I 
will not be a hypocrite." The Hindus are to me 
an interesting people; I can make allowance for 
them ; we could not expect anything better of 
them when we consider the system under which 
they are reared. 



^30 Twe:nty-on^ Ye:ars in India. 

The most prominent and characteristic institu- 
tion of Hinduism, other than Brahminism, is 
caste. The power of caste is as irrational as it is 
unbounded. The touch, even the shadow, of a 
low caste man pollutes the man of caste preten- 
sions. The high caste man honors and worships 
a cow, but shrinks from the touch of a man of 
low caste. It is a terrible system, holding men 
in bondage worse than African slavery. Its whole 
tendency is to divide and separate men and make 
them regardless of each other's welfare. It 
makes them indifferent to the needs and suffer- 
ings of others. 

The higher classes are polished in their man- 
ners, have quick active minds, and are fond of 
learning, as a rule. Very many are seeking edu- 
cation, but the great mass of the people are ex- 
ceedingly poor and ignorant. Their ideas of sin 
and righteousness are totally different from ours. 
Their religious duties chiefly consist of repeating 
the name of a god, or offering a brief sentence of 
prayer, bathing, observing the rules of caste, mak- 
ing the required offerings to the Brahmins, or at 
the temple. No sense of moral obligation seems 



Twi:nty-one Years in India. 231 

to enter into the thought of a Hindu. If he seeks 
to propitiate his god, it is that he may do him no 

harm. 

I do not think that the Hindus are naturally 
cruel or hard-hearted, more than others; but they 
are selfish no doubt, and indifferent to the wants 
of others ; their system makes them so. Woman 
is assigned an inferior position, but she is by no 
means always kept in it. The case of widows is 
extremely hard ; many of them are mere children, 
and are denied everything calculated to brighten 
the life of a child. Early marriages are also one 
of the abuses of Hindu society. The age of con- 
sent has now been raised to twelve years. 

They are intensely conservative and proud of 
their religion, and very unwilling to relinquish it. 
It is very much against their feelings to receive 
their religion from foreigners. The Arya Samajh 
is an effort to reform Hinduism by restoring the 
authority of the Vedas. The Brahmo Samajh is 
also a kind of compromise, accepting some things 
from the Christian religion and retaining the best 
of their own system. 



233 TwKNTY-ON^ Ye:ARS IN InDIA. 

They have but little enterprise in business pur- 
suits, and are content to follow in paths already 
made. They have but little public spirit, and less 
of what we call patriotism. I am inclined to 
think, however, that this is growing on the whole. 

They do not lack mental activity, but they do 
lack in character, in breadth of view and firmness 
of grasp, and self-reliance in cases of unexpected 
emergency. They lack versatility and originality. 
They are clever copyists and clerks rather than 
originators and masters. They seem utterly to 
lack the inventive faculty. The higher classes 
are given to speculative thought, all enshrouded 
in a blind fatality. The lower classes are ig- 
norant and inclined to indifference. As you min- 
gle with them you hear much of "kismat ke bat," 
that is fate. They meet reverses stoically ; "it is my 
fate," they say. Large numbers are now becom- 
ing Christians, especially from the lower classes- 
Some of our native Christians are filling high and 
responsible positions. All classes among the 
Hindus, I think, have a very high conception of 
the character pf ou,r blessed Lord. 




CLASS OF CHRISTIAN GIRLS. 

One C.cneratidii from Heat hcni^ni. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
The Mohammedans of India. 

I HAVi: stated in a former chapter that the 
last census makes the Moslem population of India 
62,458,077, which is nearly one-third of the pop- 
ulation of the whole Mohammedan world. They 
are very numerous in Upper India, especially in 
the cities and larger towns. As they were the 
rulers of the country for nearly six hundred 
years, until the British period began in 1757, they 
naturally have a good deal of influence and power 
still. As a class they are much improved from 
what they were a hundred and fifty years ago, 
when they first came under British rule. 

Mohammed was born in Mecca, in Arabia, in 
the year 569. At the age of forty he claimed to 
have been commissioned of God as a prophet, and 
that his mission was to convert the world to the 
true faith. He soon gained proselytes, raised an 

233 



234 Twknty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

army of Arabs for the subjugation of the world. 
The career of conquest was begun by Mohammed 
himself soon after his flight to Medina in 622, 
and was carried on with great vigor by his suc- 
cessors, so that province after province, and coun- 
try after country, were overcome in rapid suc- 
cession. The purpose was to establish by the 
sword a universal empire, in which there should 
be one prophet and one religion. The Moham- 
medans were from the first violent opposers of 
all idolatry. Their creed was summed up in these 
sententious words: * 'There is one God, and Mo- 
hammed is his prophet." Every country or city 
they overcame was required to embrace the faith 
of Islam and pay tribute. In case of refusal the 
men were put to death, the women and children 
were reduced to slavery. It is said that the fol- 
lowers of the prophet overcame Persia, Egypt, 
and Spain in two or three campaigns ; but it was 
nearly three centuries after the first invasion be- 
fore they were able to gain any substantial foot- 
ing in India. There had been several invasions 
of the country by the Mohammedans before their 



Twe:nty-on^ Ye:ars in India. 235 

supremacy became established, which dates from 
1206 A. D., the time of Kootub-ud-deen, who was 
the first to occupy Delhi as the seat of Moslem 
power. A celebrated monument of his reign ex- 
ists in the Kutub-Minar, one of the most beauti- 
ful shafts in the world, two hundred and thirty- 
seven feet high, about twelve miles out in what 
is known as old Delhi. 

The most remarkable of all the Mohammedan 
dynasties that arose was that of the Moguls. 
The Moguls were a tribe of Tartars who roamed 
with their flocks through Central Asia as far as 
the Chinese wall. Genghis Khan was their leader. 
Many of them had come into India with the lead- 
ers of different invasions, and remained in it. 
Baber was the founder of this dynasty. His 
reign began in 1526. He was succeeded by his 
son, Humayun, and he again by Akhbar, who 
was, without all doubt, the greatest and best ruler 
India ever had among the Mohammedans. He 
was succeeded by Jehanghir, and he by Shah 
Jehan, and he again by Aurungzebe, during whose 
reign it became evident that the Mogul power had 



;336 TwKNTY-ONi: Yi:ARS IN InDIA. 

entered upon a period of decay. Strife and cor- 
ruption at court, disorganization in the camp, 
and general and widespread discontent among the 
people on account of the imposition of the jezzia, 
a poll-tax, levied by Mohammedans on all subject 
to them, and excessive taxes on the land, indi- 
cate clearly that the process of decline had set in. 

Thirty-six years later, Nadir Shah, king of 
Persia, invaded India. During his occupancy of 
the city of Delhi one of the most dreadful massa- 
cres took place that is known in history. For two 
days the streets ran with blood. No country in 
the world has suffered more from invasions than 
India. This was the last. A little more than a 
score of years brings us to the end of the period 
of Mohammedan supremacy in India, and the be- 
ginning of the Christian period of her history, a 
period in which the country has enjoyed the bless- 
ings of peace and security as never before. 

The kings of the Mohammedan period were 
generally corrupt and almost constantly engaged 
in wars to extend their dominions or to spread 
the Mohammedan faith. They gave little atten- 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 237 

tion to the improvement of the country or to the 
needs of the common people. They cared but Ht- 
tle for them except to plunder them. There was 
scant protection for life and property. In those 
days many Hindus were forced to become Mo- 
hammedans. These rulers, with few exceptions, 
were cruel and utterly unprincipled, caring liter- 
ally nothing for the prosperity and happiness of 
their people. Perhaps Baber, Akhbar, and Shah 
Jehan may be regarded as exceptions. There is 
very little, indeed, to be found in the Moslem 
period that commends it to the enlightened judg- 
ment of the present day. 

The Mohammedans are a vigorous, self-as- 
serting people, inclined to look with contempt 
upon others, and to be intolerant, vindictive, and 
immoral. Their system is bad and can but tend 
to immorality. 

They look and appear much like the Hindus ; 
to one who is strange to the country, they are dis- 
tinguished with some difficulty. There are some 
slight differences in dress ; their houses are much 
like those of their Hindu neighbors; they live 



238 TwKnty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

together on the same streets, and their style of 
living is in many respects similar. Their food is 
much like the Hindu's, with the exception that 
they use meat as an article of diet, while the 
Hindus abhor it. They have no caste ; but living 
in close contact as they do with the Hindus, they 
are much influenced by them as to their customs, 
more than they themselves often realize. In 
many Moslem countries they will readily eat with 
Christians, but in India they will very seldom do 
this. The arrangement of society with them is 
much less complex than that of the Hindus. 
Through Upper India, they usually observe a 
fourfold classification, into Sayad, Mogul, Pa- 
than, and Sheikh. The Sayads are the most hon- 
ored of the four, as they claim descent from the 
prophet himself. The Moguls are, as the name 
implies, descendants from the Tartar conquerors 
of India. They are less numerous than the other 
divisions, and in some cases still preserve a 
marked Turanian type of countenance. They are 
generally known by the title of Beg affixed to 
their names, and often use the prefix Mir, or 
Mirza, from Amirzada^ son of a noble. 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 239 

The Pathans are of Afghan origin, and dis- 
tinguish themselves by the title Khan, which they 
affix to their name. 

Sheikh is more common. Any one who does 
not belong to either of the classes before named, 
is, or may be, called a Sheikh. Those who be- 
come converts from Hinduism usually take this 
title, and from having been used so commonly it 
has long since ceased to have any special mean- 
ing or value. 

The Mohammedans are divided into two 
great divisions, the Sunnis and the Shias, and 
to these may be added two others nearly as im- 
portant — the Wahabis and Sufis. 

First, the Sunnis are regarded as the orthodox 
party. They accept Abu Bekr, Omar, and 0th- 
man, as well as Ali, as legitimate successors of 
the prophet. They hold to tradition, and by it 
neutralize some particulars in Mohammedan law 
that are of an objectionable nature, affirming that 
Mohammed himself repealed them, though they 
are still in the Koran. They are divided Into four 
great sects, the Hanlfs, Shafts, Mallkis, and Ham- 
balls. 



240 Twe:nty-oni: Ykars in India. 

Second, the Shias regard Ali, the husband of 
Fatimah, the prophet's daughter, as the true suc- 
cessor of Mohammed, and that Abu Bekr, Omar, 
and Othman were impostors or usurpers. They 
hold to traditions, and the twelve Imams, begin- 
ning with Ali, and ending with Abu Kasmi, the 
Madhi, who, they claim, is still living, and that he 
will yet appear and lead them in the conquest of 
the world. This belief is seemingly dying out 
since their disappointment in regard to the so- 
called Madhi of the Soudan some years ago. 
They observe the commemoration of the Imams, 
Ali, Hassan, and Hussain at the Moharram with 
great enthusiasm. The Persians are usually 
Shias, while Turkey is the stronghold of the Sun- 
nis, and this accounts for the bitter antagonism 
between the Turks and Persians. 

Third, the Wahabis are a very fanatical and 
bigoted class, a very dangerous element in the 
political interests of the countries where they are 
numerous. 

The fourth class, the Sufis, are not very 
numerous, but they have great influence in some 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 341 

places. Their creed seems to be a mixture of 
Mohammedanism and Pantheism. 

Mohammed in his early Hfe seems to have 
been a sincere seeker after truth, and gave prom- 
ise of becoming a great rehgious reformer; but 
it is doubtful if he was what he appeared to be. 
It is certain that soon after the Hegira he threw 
off the mask and assumed his true character as an 
impostor and hypocrite. He resorted to the sword 
to spread his doctrines; he declared war, made 
treaties and broke them, encouraged assassina- 
tions, and ordered general massacres on the as- 
sumed authority of a revelation from God. In 
his private life he gave way to his baser passions 
and answered criticism by pretended revelations 
from heaven. There can be no question but that 
during his last years he became corrupt, vindic- 
tive, and cruel. 

The Mohammedan system has in it some 
truth, but it is mixed with much that is base and 
corrupt. They believe in one God, and are bit- 
ter opponents of all forms of idolatry. They re- 
ject the doctrine of the Trinity, but admit that 
16 



242 Twi:nty-onk Y^ars in India. 

our Lord was a prophet. They deny that he was 
put to death on the cross. They have no atone- 
ment, they believe in a heaven of voluptuous and 
sensual joys, and in a hell for all infidels. They 
believe in angels good and bad, and are great 
fatalists. They admit the Divine origin of our 
Holy Scriptures, but say we have corrupted them. 

The Moslems of India are in most respects in 
advance of those in most, if not all, other coun- 
tries. This is owing to their close contact with 
Christianity in India. The Government is Chris- 
tian, and for nearly a hundred years has been open 
to missionary effort. 

Every missionary in Upper India comes di- 
rectly in contact with them while pursuing his 
work. In the cities they form a part of every con- 
gregation he addresses. A portion of the scholars 
in every mission school are from this class of 
people. They have come in close contact with 
all our evangelizing methods for many years, and 
it has had its influence upon them. They were 
quick to see that they must avail themselves of the 
advantages of education offered by Government 



Twknty-one: Ye:ars in India. 243 

and by missionaries, or they would be left behind 
by their Hindu neighbors in securing positions 
of honor and emolument offered by Government, 
and by business establishments in the present day. 
They saw that they must not depend upon their 
system of education in Arabic and Persian and 
the Koran, but that they must acquire the English 
language, and become acquainted with geography, 
history, and mathematics, if they would anything 
like hold their own. The consequence is that we 
have a constantly growing class of educated and 
advanced men who are not satisfied with the old 
order of things. They see the great disadvantage 
at which the doctrines of Islam appear, placed 
alongside the teachings of our Lord Jesus, and 
they are beginning to demand reforms. They 
are coming to understand that their polygamy, 
concubinage, and seclusion of women must be 
abandoned. Great changes are evidently passing 
over the Moslem population of India. They are 
investigating the grounds of their faith in 
the Koran and the general teachings of Mo- 
hammed with a thoroughness and fairness never 



244 TwDnty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

shown before. They are considering the claims 
of Christianity in a far better spirit than they 
have shown in former days. The work among 
them in India is very hopeful of great results in 
the near future. A fair proportion of converts in 
our native Christian Church have come from 
among the Mohammedan population. A consid- 
erable number of the very ablest ministers in the 
native Church have come from these people. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Again Pastor of the Naini Tal Church. 

In 1894 I again went out to India, after an 
absence of ten years, and much to my surprise was 
appointed to Naini Tal. Dr. Waugh had been in 
charge of the native work and was now desiring 
to return home on leave, so I took over charge of 
the native work from him, and at the same time 
I was to relieve Mr. Stuntz of the care of the 
English Church. Mr. Stuntz was principal of 
Oak Openings Boys' High School, and the care 
of this institution taxed him to the utmost, and 
he felt that he must be relieved of a portion of 
his work. Immediately after Conference he was 
taken ill, which proved so serious that he was 
obliged to return to the United States. I had ex- 
pected to have his assistance in conducting the 
services of the English Church, but now the whole 
of it fell on me. I was much disappointed in this, 

245 



246 Twi:nTy-one: Years in India. 

as I had anticipated great pleasure in being asso- 
ciated with him in this work. 

I now propose to explain, as well as I can, the 
exact situation of this department of our work. 
It is not easy for people here at home to under- 
stand just the condition in India, particularly in 
regard to English work, and not the interest is 
felt in it, it has seemed to me, that its impor- 
tance demands. It was now ten years since I made 
over charge of this Church to the Rev. James 
Baume, who came out to relieve me so that I 
might enter native work. Of course, in this 
period, many changes had taken place. Sir Henry 
Ramsay had retired and returned to England and 
had passed away. Mr. MacDonald had died. 
James Eraser had gone to New Zealand. Many 
others had died or gone home to England. Most 
Europeans in our part of India are in Govern- 
ment service in one form or another. The regu- 
lations of the service require them to retire at a 
comparatively early age, when they usually re- 
turn to England to spend their declining years. 
Very few indeed make India their home after 



Twenty-one Years in India. 247 

their term of service has ended. This makes Eng- 
lish society very changeable, especially in a place 
like Naini Tal. This being a summer resort, peo- 
ple were coming and going continually ; our con- 
gregation not only changed from year to year, 
but it changed a good deal in course of a single 
season. We would have many during the latter 
part of the season that we did not have during 
the first part of it, and some that we had at the 
beginning we would not have at its close. The 
Government allows a month of leave a year to 
most in its service. This may be saved up, and 
three months taken every third year. Many do 
this way, and so have three months in the hills 
at a time. This, some take the first half of the 
hot season, others take the last half; the hot sea- 
son continues about six months. So the congre- 
gation changes a good deal about the middle of 
the hot season. This feature of our English work 
has its disadvantages, of course, but the circum- 
stances are peculiar In India, and these must be 
considered. I have always felt it to be of the 
greatest importance to keep a warm religious at- 



24^ Tw]^nTy-onk Yi:ars in India. 

mosphere at a great center of influence like Naini 
Tal. People would come from distant and iso- 
lated places, where for many months at a time 
they would have no religious privileges whatever, 
so far as Church going is concerned. In some 
cases people so situated would become indifferent 
as regards Church going, but generally English 
people are pleased to attend Church when such 
privileges are afforded them. Many who are se- 
cluded feel it very much, and long to hear God's 
Holy Word preached. In all the years I have 
had charge of our English Church in Naini Tal, 
I have tried to make our services helpful to all, 
not by any means forgetting these cases. I have 
often had assurances of appreciation of our serv- 
ices by those who were far away, and many years 
afterward. A Christian man's influence in India 
is multiplied sevenfold beyond what it is at home, 
under all ordinary circumstances. So it may be 
seen how important it is that those who bear the 
name of Christ should be Christians indeed. The 
sentiment expressed in Charles Wesley's hymn 



TwKNTY-ON^ Years in India. 249 

No. 805, in our Hymnal, has a meaning in India 
that to me it has never had elsewhere. 

"We for Christ our Master stand 
Lights in a benighted land: 
We our dying Lord confess ; 
We are Jesus' witnesses." 

It is this that makes our English work in a 
place like Naini Tal so very important; it reacts 
with such peculiar force upon our native work. 
Every European life in India is a power for good 
or evil in influence»upon the natives. This is one 
of the great obstacles in our way that does much 
to hinder the progress of the work — the irrelig- 
ious lives of many Europeans — the people see. 

A few years ago the headquarters of the Ben- 
gal army were located at Naini Tal. This brought 
quite a considerable number of superior young 
men to Naini Tal as permanent residents, who 
were employed in the various offices. Many of 
these are members of our congregation. There 
are a few soldiers every year in the place who 
choose our Church as their place of worship. For 



250 Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

each of these the Government pays into the funds 
of the Church one rupee a month. There are a 
number of famihes engaged in business who come 
up regularly every season and carry on their busi- 
ness in Naini Tal during the hot weather, and go 
to some station in the plains for the same pur- 
pose during the cold season. These families come 
to Naini Tal early in April, and go down to the 
plains in October. There are a few families who 
live permanently at Naini Tal. Then we have 
our boarding-schools, Wellesley for girls, and 
Oak Openings for boys. These, with the teach- 
ers, attend one of the services at the church on 
Sunday. The evening service at five o'clock is 
most largely attended. Our church seats about 
three hundred, and during the season it is well 
filled at the evening service, and a more inspiring 
congregation it has never been my privilege to 
preach to. Many missionaries are with us from 
time to time for a few weeks during the season, 
from almost every part of India. I have at dif- 
ferent times spent about sixteen years in Naini 



TwKNTY-ON^ YkarS in InDIA. 25 1 

Tal ; for fourteen years I have had charge of the 
EngHsh congregation. It has always been a de- 
Hght to serve this Church. In a pastorate ex- 
tending over many years at home and abroad, I 
can say that my last term of five years with this 
congregation was the most delightful of my life. 
The most perfect harmony prevailed, and a spirit 
of enthusiasm in work for Christ that was most 
encouraging and inspiring. It was our custom 
to observe the first week in June as a season for 
special revival services, and we often had seasons 
of great refreshing. In one of these seasons sixty 
or more of our young people started in the service 
of Christ. The memory of those dear people will 
ever remain with me, and I shall never cease to 
pray that from among them some may arise who 
will go forth as apostles to India's unsaved mill- 
ions. 

I have spoken of our schools in a former chap- 
ter, and have tried to show their importance to 
our work. This I am sure can not be overesti- 
mated. These young people are sure to occupy 



^5^ Tw^NTY-ONi: Yi:ARS IN InDIA. 

positions of responsibility in the future where 
they can do much to help the cause of Christ, if 
they become earnest living Christians. I hope to 
furnish some illustrations showing the fine school 
buildings of Wellesley. Through Miss Easton's 
able management the whole magnificent school 
property is clear of debt. It is in every way thor- 
oughly well equipped for school purposes. Two 
valuable dwelling houses are owned by the school, 
outside, for rental ; these are free of debt and form 
a basis for an endowment fund. In addition they 
have a beautiful property about fifteen miles away 
down at the foot of the mountains for a winter 
home, and that furnishes fruit and vegetables for 
the use of the school. This school has a truly 
magnificent property, and no school in India 
stands higher educationally. Oak Openings, too, 
has a bright future before it under the vigorous 
management of Dr. J. C. Butcher. Rev. Mr. 
Craven, now of Evanston, 111., built a fine busi- 
ness block, which he designed, when paid for, to 
form an endowment for Oak Openings School. 



Twe:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. 253 

While I was there we formed a company, took 
over the building with its debts, and are now try- 
ing to pay for it. When once this is done and 
the debt removed from the Oak Openings estate, 
the school will be put on a splendid footing. If 
some one could be found who would give them 
twenty thousand dollars, I can think of no place 
where this amount of money could be put that 
would be sure of yielding so large a return in 
the way of good. 

In the first illustration may be seen our com- 
modious school building, with its fine tower and 
clock, for native boys. This was built by Mr. 
Craven also, and is a worthy monument of his wis- 
dom and energy. This is the oldest school in our 
entire mission, and has done a grand work for the 
native community of Naini Tal. There are but 
few of the permanent residents who have not at 
some time been pupils in this school, and they are 
generally firm friends of the Mission, and very 
favorably disposed towards Christianity. I firmly 
believe the time will come when much fruit will 



254 TwE^NTY-ONK Ye:ars in India. 

be gathered from the seed sown through this 
school. The services of the native Church are 
held in the old Church, or Mission Chapel, the 
first one built by us in India. This Church has 
a pastor of its own, a fine Sunday-school, and a 
good congregation during the season. 

In these days there does not seem to be as 
much done in direct evangelistic work among 
heathen natives as there was years ago. At that 
time the number of native Christians was small, 
but now, as it has increased, it has brought special 
cares along with it, so that the time of the work- 
ers has been largely taken up with caring for 
those who have become Christians or are desiring 
to become such. It is very manifest that God is 
ready to give us the people as fast as we are able 
to care for them. It is absolutely necessary that 
those who are received into the Church should 
be instructed, otherwise the Church of the future 
will be but little better than the heathen them- 
selves. This is a burning question at the present 
time in our work in India. It is claimed that 



TwKnty-one: Ydars in India. 255 

more than a hundred thousand people are ask- 
ing admission into the Christian Church in India 
at the present time. Can we imagine what that 
means — the responsibihty it carries with it? We 
may put these people off for a time, but it is at- 
tended with much risk to our work to do this. 

The curtailment of our work from year to 
year for some years past has been attended with 
many unhappy consequences, and has caused 
much embarrassment. We decline to baptize peo- 
ple because we can not provide teachers for them. 
It is hardly possible for them to comprehend this. 
They see how we dress and live, and not unnat- 
urally they think we can do anything we desire to 
do. It is not strange they come to think that we 
do not care for them, and if their patience is taxed 
too long they may turn against us and hinder 
others from coming to us. I am thankful to say 
that our prospects are brightening in the field. 
The increase of our funds last year, and a pros- 
pect of a larger increase this year, are inspiring 
hope in the minds of our missionaries. I can re- 



256 Tw^NTY-ON^ Yi^ARS IN InDIA. 

member when every door seemed closed against 
us, and how hard we labored to open them ; now^ 
it seems every door is open, and we are entreated 
to enter, but we dare not for lack of funds to sus- 
tain the work. 

The period of my service extends through 
forty-three years, from 1857 to 1900. This is 
divided into nearly equal parts between my home 
Conference and India. That my service in the 
Mission should have been so broken in upon is a 
matter of much regret; but unavoidable circum- 
stances seemed to make it necessary. 

In all my absence from the field I was not an 
occasion of expense to the Missionary Society; 
but for one year. 

I spent twenty-one years in India. Counting 
journeyings to and from, and furloughs allowed, 
my service would count much more. 

Age and broken health seemed now to make it 
best for me to return home, and after forty-nine 
years in the active ministry, at home and abroad, 
to seek to be relieved from the duties of the effect- 
ive relation. 



TwE)NTY-ONK Ye:aRS IN InDIA. 257 

I have had many regrets since returning in 
1900 that I did not arrange to spend my decHn- 
ing years in India. I might have done much to 
aid the work in many ways, I think, even though 
I could not have done full work. 

I desire to express the deep sense of gratitude 
I shall ever cherish to our Missionary Board, and 
to the Secretaries, for the many kindnesses re- 
ceived during the years of my connection with 
them. 



17 



CHAPTER XVL 
A Call to This \A/'ork. 

I AM not quite willing to conclude this account 
of my personal connection with this great work 
without a few words to young people who are 
contemplating the possibility of engaging in this 
work. I regard it the greatest and most glorious 
work to which young men and women can conse- 
crate their lives. The call has never been more 
urgent than now. Hundreds will be sent out in 
the near future where scores only have hitherto 
been sent. The world is not yet won for Christ, 
though much has been done and great achieve- 
ments realized ; but yet much remains to be done. 
In fact, the work is but little more than fairly 
begun. 

The Madras Missionary Conference, in April 
last, made the statement that at present there is 
in India only one missionary to every 150,000 

258 



Twi:nty-one: Years in India. 259 

people, and it is urged that the number be in- 
creased so that there ma}^ be at least one mission- 
ary to every 50,000. This would require that 
twice as many be sent out as there are are now 
in India. 

Closely connected with the subject of a call to 
this work, is that of obligation to give the Gospel 
to every creature. Christ said, *'Go ye therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name 
of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; 
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
command you ; and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." 

It would seem that this must settle the ques- 
tion of obligation in the mind of every loyal dis- 
ciple of Christ. The command is too clear to 
admit of any doubt. No conditions are inter- 
posed ; it is not, Go if convenient, if you feel dis- 
posed to go, or if everything favors. Nor does 
He say, Go if you are wanted, if the people invite 
you and are waiting to receive your message; 
but because they need the Gospel and Christ bids 
you carry it to them in all haste. The command 



26o Twe:nty-one Ykars in India. 

is general, and is binding upon all. All may do 
something to extend the kingdom of Christ, and 
obligation is equal to ability. 

The fact that we can not do as much as some 
others is no reason for not doing what we can. 
The little we can do is important and essential, 
as well as the greater things others may do. 
Whatever we do for Christ in the true spirit of a 
disciple, be it little or much, will be accepted and 
will not fail of its reward. Not every one can 
go in person, but we can go or help others to go. 
Christ was himself a missionary. His Church 
must be a missionary Church to the end of time. 
It has been successful in the past only as the mis- 
sionary fire has glowed upon its altars; it will 
only be so in the future as this condition is ob- 
served. There is such a thing as apostolic suc- 
cession. The true succession is in the spirit, not 
in the letter. It was made solemnly binding upon 
the apostles and their successors to the end of 
time to give the Gospel to every creature. 

So long as there is one human being in any 
place on this wide earth that has not heard the 



Tw^NTY-ON^ Years in India. 261 

glad tidings of salvation, this obligation will con- 
tinue binding upon us as the disciples of Christ. 
We live in a grand time — the best the world has 
ever seen. More has been done for the spread 
of the Gospel during the century just past than 
in the whole Christian era before it ; and who can 
doubt that we are on the eve of far greater 
things than ever before witnessed ? The world is 
being stirred as never before. It may be in oppo- 
sition, as seemed to be the case a little while ago 
in China, but be it so ; this is better than apathy, 
though it is now generally believed that this re- 
cent outburst of wrath was rather anti-foreigner 
than anti-Christian. Such seasons of seeming 
defeat indicate that great triumphs are near at 
hand. It was so with the great sepoy mutiny in 
India in 1857, when it seemed that everything 
belonging to Christianity must inevitably be swept 
away, but it was not. On the contrary, in the end 
it put the country far ahead, and Christianity took 
a firmer hold and progressed as it otherwise would 
not have done. It will be so in China. I may say 
rather, it is already evidently so. These convul- 



263 Twe:nty-onk Years in India. 

sions are but the birth pangs of a nev/ and better 
era for the world and for the cause of Christ. 
The blood of the martyrs has been in every age 
the seed of the Church. God rules, and persecu- 
tions and wars are overruled for the furtherance 
of righteousness in the world. It would be a mis- 
take for any one to go out without a conviction 
that he is really called to this work, as such a 
conviction is necessary to sustain one in it. Some 
may say it is a question of expediency, or prefer- 
ence, only. Some say this in regard to the work 
of the ministry, but it is a low view to take of it. 
We believe the Lord chooses his ministers, and 
lays upon them the obligation to preach the Gos- 
pel. The necessity is laid upon them, and they 
are made to feel that they must go for- 
ward in this work. The call to be a 
missionary may not be just like a call to the 
sacred ministry in all of its aspects, but it is 
similar in some of its features at least. In a 
sense it is true that God calls us to every kind of 
work in his vineyard. "The steps of a good man 
are ordered of the Lord." "And thine ears shall 



Twi:nty-one: Years in India. 263 

hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way, 
walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right or to the 
left." (Isa. XXX, 21.) Certainly it is reasonable 
to suppose that there would be a somewhat special 
call to a great special service like this. As a mat- 
ter of fact, I have never known a successful mis- 
sionary who did not feel that God as certainly 
called him to this work as he did to the ministry. 
The impression will be made upon the mind by the 
Holy Spirit in some way that we are called to it. 
This impression will be so strong, as a rule, that 
it can not well be removed. I firmly believe God 
as certainly calls women to this work as he does 
men. It is one of the wonders of the age what 
women are doing for Christ. In addition to the 
impression made upon the mind, other things 
must confirm and sustain it. There must be good 
firm health, with no special tendency to disease 
of any kind. One must have good natural abil- 
ities and at least fair attainments. I think special 
stress should be laid upon the importance of good 
judgment and tact, ability to master foreign lan- 
guages, and to utilize strange environments. The 



264 Twe:nty-one: Ykars in India. 

importance of these things can not be overesti- 
mated. One must know human nature, and how 
to adapt one's self to it. We must know the peo- 
ple to whom we go, have sympathy with them, 
appreciate their feelings and difficulties, and be 
able to see things as they see them. We can never 
win the people to Christ only as we win them to 
ourselves first, and to this end we must gain their 
confidence, and we can only do this by convincing 
them that we know how things appear to them. 
Knowledge of human nature, sanctified common 
sense, are indispensable qualities to make a suc- 
cessful missionary. The highest literary attain- 
ments, while not absolutely necessary in every 
case, will find ample scope for their fullest exer- 
cise. It will be greatly to the advantage of any 
one going out to India particularly, to have spent 
some time with one who has had experience in 
the field. It would save him from many mis- 
takes and mortifications. I think it is a mistake 
to send young people out, in these days, ignorant 
of everything they need to know about the coun- 
tries and people to which they go. It would be 



TwDNTY-ON^ Ye:aRS in InDIA. 265 

better for them to have a year or two for special 
study of the languages, history, customs, and 
habits of the people to which they go. There are 
facilities now for preparation of this kind which 
we did not have in former days. There are ex- 
cellent institutions now for such study, where 
every facility is offered young people in this spe- 
cial line. 

Some think it better not to begin the study of 
the language until arriving upon the ground, but 
I think it is wise to begin at once, if possible; 
study anything and everything that will be likely 
to increase one's efficiency in the work. Many 
years ago, Dr. Durbin sent to me, to study the 
language while waiting, a young man who was 
under appointment to India, but could not leave 
for his field for some months. It so happened that 
some months later we went out to India together. 
We went the long route around the Cape, and 
when we arrived in India, to his great delight, he 
found he was ready to enter upon active work, 
greatly to the advantage of the Mission at the 
time. This was Dr. Hoskins, who, after almost 



266 Twknty-one: Yi:ars in India. 

twoscore years of remarkable, useful, and suc- 
cessful work for Christ in Cawnpore, suddenly 
passed from his work on earth to his reward in 
heaven, a few months ago. 

It is taken for granted that a missionary must 
have grace, a passion for souls, with stipreme loy- 
alty to God and the Church that sends him out. 
Without these qualities he will fail, whatever 
other attainments he may have. What a glorious 
opportunity presents itself to truly consecrated 
young people, well equipped for the work. O, 
may a great army of such be raised up and thrust 
out into the field already white to the harvest ! 

I will only add a few words as to my own 
personal call to this work. My first distinct im- 
pression of a personal call to missionary work 
abroad was received in a missionary meeting held 
in Lawrenceville, St. Lawrence County, N. Y., an 
appointment on my first charge. It was on Sun- 
day evening. Rev. Thomas Richey, who was a 
pastor of an adjoining charge, had come to assist 
me, and had just closed a very stirring address, 
when the choir sang the hymn beginning, 



TwENTY-ONK Years in India. 267 

" Ye Christian heralds, go, proclaim 
Salvation in Immanuel's name ; 
To distant climes the tidings bear, 
And plant the Rose of Sharon there." 

While singing this verse it suddenly flashed 
over me that this was in some special way de- 
signed for me, and that I would have some part 
to take in this great work. The thought appalled 
me, and I began to think of difficulties and dan- 
gers to be encountered, and to say, "Impossible! I 
am not good enough or brave enough for such a 
great and glorious work." Then followed these 
words : 

" He '11 shield you with a wall of fire, 
Your heart with holy zeal inspire ; 
Bid raging winds their fury cease, 
And calm the savage breast to peace." 

I then and there surrendered myself to God 
for this service. From that time I had no doubt 
but that God had chosen me for this work, and 
that in due time the way would be opened. Three 
years later the call came from Dr. Durbin for two 
young men for India. I responded to the call. 
If I had a hundred lives I would gladly give them 
all for that beautiful but dark land. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
The Progress of Missionary "Work in India. 

It is claimed that the Apostle Thomas visited 
India to communicate the knowledge of our Lord 
Jesus to the people of that country. This, how- 
ever, is not well authenticated. A missionary 
named Thomas lived and labored in some parts 
of Southern India some centuries later, who is 
said to have suffered martyrdom at St. Thome, a 
suburb of Madras. It seems probable that these 
have been confounded. 

The Bishop of Alexandria, in response to an 

appeal from India, sent out the learned Pantaenus 

in about i8o A. D. It is not known how long he 

remained, nor with what success he met, but he 

suffered martyrdom in Alexandria in 211, and we 

are told that after his return he presided over 

the School of Catechists, which he left when he 

went out. It is probable therefore that he did 

268 



Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 269 

not remain very long, and that no very marked 
results followed his labors there. 

About a century later a missionary named 
Theophilus visited India, where he tells us that he 
found Christianity already planted. In the fifth 
century missionaries from the Syrian Church 
came to India, and they still have a considerable 
number of Churches and adherents on the south- 
west coast of India. 

Next came the Portuguese, or Roman Cath- 
olic missionaries, who located on the southwest 
coast, with Goa as their headquarters. Francis 
Xavier gave these missions a great impulse in 
1 54 1. His zeal and piety won the admiration of 
all in a most corrupt and degenerate age, and soon 
a manifest improvement took place among his 
own countrymen in Goa, to whom he was espe- 
cially sent. But he longed to work for the na- 
tives, and so had the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's 
Prayer, and the Ten Commandments translated 
into the vernacular, and learned them by heart, 
and then, with a bell in his hand, he went through 
the villages repeating what he had learned. His 



270 TwKNTY-ONi: Yl^ARS IN InDIA. 

words and gentle ways won many to him, and a 
deep impression was made. The people of India 
have the greatest reverence for what impresses 
them as a holy character, and gentleness of man- 
ner greatly attracts them. He wrote in his diary 
at this time, "It often happens to me that my 
hands fail through the fatigue of baptizing, for 
I have baptized a whole village in a single day." 
It is related that it was his custom, after repeating 
an article of the Creed to ask them if they believed ; 
then, on their assent, he baptized them. He added, 
"Often by repeating so frequently the Creed and 
other things my voice and strength have failed 
me." We can but admire the zeal and devotion 
of this remarkable man, but not his hasty and in- 
discriminate baptisms, without making any pro- 
vision for the instruction of those he baptized. 

It is claimed that Roman Catholic mission- 
aries traveled extensively through the country in 
those early days. It is said that one of the wives 
of the Mogul Emperor Akhbar was a Christian, 
and that he invited some of the priests from Goa 
to his court, and took great interest in discussions 
between them and the Mohammedan moulvies. 



TwKNTY-ONK Years in India. 271 

The first Protestant missions were begun un- 
der the auspices of the king of Denmark. In 1621 
the Danes obtained, from the Rajah of Tan j ore, 
Tranquebar, and the country contiguous on the 
southeastern coast of India. A httle later Seram- 
pore was added to their possessions. In 1706 
two devoted German Lutherans were sent out by 
the king of Denmark, or under his patronage. 
These were Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, who were 
noble and most devoted missionaries, and consid- 
erable success attended their labors. A few years 
later they report several thousand Christians. In 
1750 Christian Frederick Schwarz arrived in In- 
dia, certainly one of the noblest missionaries of 
modern times. He was revered and loved by all he 
came in contact with. The Rajahs confided in 
him when they would not trust others. Even 
Hyder, the powerful foe of the English, received 
Schwarz with distinguished consideration, and 
evidently had great respect for his character. The 
common people trusted him when they would not 
trust their rulers. His was a most unselfish, holy, 
and beautiful life, and most strikingly illustrates 



272 Twe:nty-oni: Yi:ars in India. 

the power of goodness of heart and life. After 
forty-seven years of loving and self-sacrificing 
toil for Christ and the people of India, alike the 
much loved and honored friend of rich and poor, 
high and low, he passed to his reward with these 
words upon his lips: "I commend my spirit into 
Thy hands; cleanse and adorn it with the right- 
eousness of my Redeemer, and receive it into the 
arms of Thy mercy." 

In 1792 the English Baptist Missionary So- 
ciety was formed, the first of modern times, or of 
all time, and William Carey was sent out as their 
first missionary, and India was chosen as their 
field. 

In 1793, when the charter of the East India 
Company came up for renewal, led by Wilber- 
force, an effort was made to insert a resolution 
permitting missionaries to live and labor in India ; 
but it was so strongly opposed by the company 
and its partisans that it failed. Carey went out in 
1793, registering as an indigo planter in order 
to gain admission to the country. In a few years 
Ward and Marshman arrived, and Carey joined 



Tw^NTY-ONK Ykars in India. 273 

them, and, with the permission of the king of Den- 
mark, they founded a mission in Serampore, 
which has become historic and venerable as one 
of the early landmarks of the great missionary 
enterprise of modern times. They translated the 
Bible into many different languages; they under- 
took to translate it into some of the languages of 
China even. They opened schools and founded 
a college, and did a vast amount of work, by which 
they largely supported themselves. They lived 
as one family and put their earnings into their 
work. They merely allowed themselves a small 
personal allowance over and above the cost of 
their table expenses. This was for their clothes, 
and it may be interesting to know just how much 
they allowed themselves for this purpose. Mr. 
Ward's allowance was rupees 20 per mensem, 
which was equal to about $10 at that time. Mr. 
Marshman's was rupees 30. Mr. Carey's was 
rupees 50 a month, as he was professor of Sans- 
crit at Fort William, and had to dress a little 
better than others. His salary received from 
Government was rupees 1,200 per month, which 
18 



274 Twi:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

all went into their work, with the exception of 
the personal allowance before mentioned. 

William Carey died on the 9th of June, 1834, 
having gained high honors as a most devoted mis- 
sionary and a distinguished Oriental scholar, hav- 
ing been in India nearly forty years without hav- 
ing once been out of it. 

In 18 1 3 the charter of the East India Com- 
pany was again before Parliament for renewal, 
and under the pressure of public opinion the coun- 
try was thrown open to free and unrestricted 
missionary effort. 

The London Missionary Society sent out their 
first missionary in 1798. The Church Mission- 
ary Society began its work about the same time. 
The American Board began its work about this 
time or in 1813. 

The Church of Scotland began in 1830, and 
sent out Rev. Alexander Duff as its first mission- 
ary. Dr. Duff's arrival marks an important 
period in educational work in India. His special 
work was to establish a missionary college. At 
that time Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic were 



Twenty-one: Ye:ars in India. 275 

taught in Government colleges in preference to 
English. Dr. Duff held that English was ''the 
best and amplest channel for speedily letting in 
the full stream of European knowledge on the 
mind of those who were destined to direct the na- 
tional intellect and heart of India." 

Dr. Duff's views were ably supported by Mr. 
Macaulay, then legal member of the Governor- 
General's Council. They were adopted by Lord 
Bentinck himself, and a resolution was adopted by 
Government on the subject, which gave a great 
impulse to English education. The effect of this 
movement has been highly beneficial. Sanscrit 
contains a great deal that is false and demoraliz- 
ing in its influence. Some one had said, ''The 
more it is studied the more errors are acquired. 
Pundits whose knowledge is confined to Sans- 
crit are learned fools, the most bigoted portion of 
the people and the greatest opponents of reform." 
English literature is by no means without de- 
fects, but it is infinitely better than the best to be 
found in India. The importance of our educa- 
tional work may, I think, be seen by remember- 



2"]^ Twe:nty-one: Ye:ars in India. 

ing the condition of Hindu and Mohammedan 
homes. The women of India are particularly 
superstitious and ignorant, they teach their chil- 
dren the stories of their gods in all their corrup- 
tion. Imagine what the effect must be upon the 
mind of a child, — no moral instruction whatever, 
everything corrupting and debasing. Now we 
get these children into our schools where they 
are taught Christianity with its elevating and 
wholesome moral truths, can any doubt that 
the effect would be elevating in every way ? Our 
schools are a great power for good, far greater 
than one can imagine, who judges by common 
standards known to us in this country. 

I desire now to call attention to what has been 
accomplished that may, in some measure at least, 
be tabulated and shown by statistics. It should 
not, however, be forgotten, that there must be 
much that can not be shown by figures. 

There are ordained missionaries in India 
about 1,134; the wives of missionaries, 899; other 
foreign helpers, mostly ladies, 1,304; thus mak- 
ing a total of 3,337 foreign missionaries. Native 



TwKNTY-ONi: Ykars in India. 277 

ordained pastors, 1,100; native catechists and 
preachers, 7,179. The native force in India, 
male and female, is about 23,011. At the close 
of 1900 there were 5,362 organized congrega- 
tions, 6,888 Sunday-schools enrolling 274,402 
scholars. There are 8,285 day-schools with 342,- 
114 scholars. There are 376 higher schools with 
24,255 students in them. There are 89 male and 
III female physicians in India, with over 300 
hospitals and dispensaries, and treating nearly a 
million and a quarter patients annually. There 
are nearly three millions of Christians in India of 
all classes. Native Christians, 2,664,313; ten 
years before there were 2,036,590, showing an in- 
crease in the decade of 627,723. In 1891 the 
Protestants numbered 474,909. In 1901 the num- 
ber has risen to 865,985. There are now all told 
2,923,241 Christians in India, against 1,976,778 
ten years before, showing an increase during the 
decade of 946,463. This shows remarkable prog- 
ress. The general increase of the whole popula- 
tion from 1 89 1 to 1 90 1 was 2.4 per cent. The 
Mohammedans increased 9 per cent^ the Roman 



^7^ Twe:nty-on^ Years in India. 

Catholics increased i6 per cent, while the Prot- 
estants increased during this period 82 per cent. 

The Bible has been published in all the more 
important languages and in many of the dialects. 
A vast amount of Christian literature has been 
published and is being circulated among the peo- 
ple. There is a large educated class in India, 
many of them educated in mission schools and 
colleges, who know a great deal about Chris- 
tianity and are now being drawn towards it. The 
mass of the people know much more about Chris- 
tianity than they did a few years ago. There is 
a manifest improvement in the morals of the peo- 
ple. They have higher conceptions of moral truth 
than they did years ago. There is not as much 
false swearing in the courts as there used to be. 
The people seem to have a much higher concep- 
tion of the sacredness of an oath than they did 
in former years. 

The Government has effected many important 
reforms. Suttee, the burning of widows with the 
dead body of their husbands, was abolished in 
1829, when Lord Bentinck was Governor-General. 



Twe:nty-onk Years in India. 279 

Infanticide and human sacrifices have been abol- 
ished, so have hook swinging and many other cruel 
rites. The condition of woman has been im- 
proved in many ways; widows are permitted to 
remarry. The age of consent has been raised to 
twelve years. Caste is no doubt gradually relax- 
ing its hold in many respects. The Brahmins are 
losing their power over the people, and the belief 
is becoming more or less general that the country 
is to become a Christian country. The masses 
are more favorably disposed towards Christianity 
and Christians than they were formerly. There 
is less bitterness manifest in these days when a 
person of standing becomes a Christian. All 
these things are signs of the times, and portend a 
brighter and happier day for India. Much, how- 
ever, yet remains to be done. There is a vast mass 
of dark and cruel heathenism to be leavened yet 
with Gospel truth. 

We have, as a Church, five publishing-houses, 
located at Lucknow, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, 
and vSingapore. From these are sent out a vast 



28o Twi:nty-oni: Ykars in India. 

amount of literature for distribution through the 
country. 

Our educational system is thoroughly organ- 
ized and very carefully administered. The Theo- 
logical Seminary located at Bareilly for the edu- 
cation of young men for the ministry. This is 
indeed a noble institution, which has grown to its 
present proportions under the wise and able ad- 
ministration of Dr. T. J. Scott, assisted by Dr. 
Dease and others. For many years Mrs. Scott 
has conducted a school for the instruction of the 
wives of the young men in the seminary, so that 
they may be prepared to act with their husbands 
as helpers in the work. 

We have the Isabella Thoburn College for 
young women located in Lucknow, and Reid 
Christian College for young men. Both of these 
are institutions giving great promise of future 
usefulness. They are already a great power for 
good in the country, but their usefulness will 
greatly increase as the years go by. They are 
splendid institutions and have a great future be- 
fore them. 




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Twi:nty-oni: Years in India. 281 

The work of the Woman's Missionary So- 
ciety also has assumed large proportions and is 
admirably administered in every particular. Their 
work is conducted in close affinity with the Parent 
Society, and yet is distinct. They have their Con- 
ference, and their workers are supervised by the 
presiding elders and receive their appointments 
from the bishop as do others. The system is in 
every sense admirable and works smoothly. Much 
is due for our excellent system to Bishop Tho- 
burn, of course, and to Bishop Parker and Miss 
Thoburn. The last named have gone to their re- 
ward, but their works remain to the great advan- 
tage of the Mission of which they were shining 
lights. I do not forget that others now living 
have had an equally honorable part in adjusting 
these great interests. I greatly admire our com- 
pact and thoroughly systematic organization. It 
was mine to have a part in this great work from 
the very beginning, and I thank God that it is 
given me now to see the vast proportions to which 
the work has grown. 

Forty-five years ago this very month of July 



282 TwENTY-ON^ Ye:ars in India. 

our first convert was baptized. We now have 103,- 
364 communicants and a Christian community of 
146,547. We have 2,788 Sunday-schools with 
123,737 pupils; educational institutions of all 
grades, 1,245, with 35,438 scholars in attendance, 
with a total of 4,320 Christian workers. We 
have property to the value of nearly or quite two 
millions of dollars. 

If we could comprehend the full meaning of 
these statistics it would fill our minds with grati- 
tude for what He has done for us. But statistics 
can not show all that God has wrought. They 
do not show the number plucked as brands from 
the burning, now shining among the angels of 
God in heaven. 

Nearly all who became Christians in the early 
years of our Mission are now gone. Longevity 
with them is not equal to what it is with us. It 
is worth something to feel that we have helped 
some of these redeemed souls into the kingdom, 
and started them on their shining way. I hope 
to meet them some day, a goodly throng, and 
join them in the new song they sing, "Saying, 



TwKNTY-ONE Years in India. 283 

Thou art worthy to take the Book and open the 
seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast re- 
deemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kin- 
dred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and 
hast made us unto our God kings and priests ; and 
we shall reign on the earth." 



man v/ 



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